Bitcoin Forum

https://cointelegraph.com/news/kenyan-energy-company-entices-bitcoin-miners-with-geothermal-power


Bitcoin is going more green, see a country electricity producer calling out for crypto miners to come to their country for crypto mining to mine with green energy, the electricity producer in Kenya, KenGen said 86% of their electricity generation are generated from renewable source. Bitcoin mining is becoming a business in the world that some organizations in a country see that they can make profit from. This will favour Kenya government in earning from bitcoin mining.

It's great to see that a company where Kenya government holds 70% ownership, is calling out miners to setup their mining facilities in their country. I never knew that Kenya is a crypto friendly country. But it seems their tourism business was hit hard due to the covid restrictions and they have realized that they need additional sources of revenue.

It's encouraging amidst the ongoing global concerns against crypto mining which is thoroughly baseless and probably funded by banking institutions. Way to go Kenya.

Which brings us to the obvious question each miner will ask first: "how much is the fish  8) kwh?"
And the answer for this might be quite in reach since if it were in the low 3-5 range miners would have been already there, if there aren't any it's obvious it wasn't competitive enough.

Selling energy directly from the source might help cut a bit of the extra expenses but it's all about the end prices, and lets not forget taxes on both profit and imports.

The first thing that comes to my mind when it comes to Africa and crypto mining are the temperatures that are actually very high in most of Africa which I guess raises the price of mining due to the extra cooling of the mining devices. But I looked at how Kenya stands on this issue and it seems that the location of the plant is still in a more temperate climate zone so the whole thing makes some sense.

The move may not attract foreign investors, but it will encourage some domestic entrepreneurs to try to make money. Success will, as always, depend on the price of energy and the level of corruption - because the greater the corruption there are many more interests that need to be met.

If it were that friendly to the domestic entrepreneurs, I think Mining in Kenya or Most African Countries would be a thriving business by now, but it isn't. When they talk about crypto Mining, you will hear about Asia (Mostly China). Europe and North America. Africa and South America rarely come up in the mining conversations, probably because it's barely a business venture there due to;

1. High power prices
2. Very high taxes on mining equipment imports and that revenue ends up in corrupt individuals pockets
3. Instabilities in different regions
4. No wide spread knowledge about Bitcoin mining yet

Yeah, speaking from experience too, it's the second coldest African country I've lived in (Ethiopia's frigging cold in winter). Compared to rest of Africa is much cooler in Kenya due to elevated land (for me, relatively anyway, from Southeast Asia, Kenya or at least Nairobi areas, it's really chilly. Right now actually 15 degrees Celcius, which is cooler than most air-conditioned places in SE Asia). Also it seems to be getting weirdly cold there -- 2 years ago massive hailstones destroying crops all around, snow occasionally since mid-2000s. So maybe it's less of an issue there (possibly even slightly more advantageous than in other parts of low-land Africa).

I know that one of the fast booming countries in cryptocurrency is Kenya in Africa continent and its one  of the countries that has it higher population numbers engaged in crypto despite the  insorbodinate hands of the government to adopt or encourage the youth in cryptocurrency adoption, (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/business/kenya-s-central-bank-warns-of-risks-in-cryptos-3756272%3fview=htmlamp) same law and restriction is as well observed in Nigeria where the populous youth engage in bitcoin using p2p despite the ban from the government denying it commercial banks from any cryptocurrency payments or transactions been carried out.

since the governments are not in support neither are they ready to give hand to cryptocurrency adoption then it will be a thing of joy having the private sector taking over, this development in Kenya is of a good advantage to both the crypto industries and the electricity producing company KenGen, the solution long awaited on bitcoin energy consumption is through the use of renewable energy source but miners lack the support to how this can be realized because of the capital and technical requirements, but Kenya will begin to mark a new ground that could increase it chances for adoption with this development.

When it comes to technological advances in Africa you will mention either Kenya 🇰🇪  or Ethiopia 🇪🇹 as the technological hubbs of Africa, their major advantage is the climate conditions in both countries have low degree of  weather conditions, despite being located in Africa that is natural hot and the climate conditions is harsh and unfriendly to most heating equipment Kenya on the other hand have very cool weather conditions and will be suitable for Bitcoin mining so having a power source that is generated through renewable energy will serve as a plus to the environmental and energy consumption concerns associated to Bitcoin mining from it critics, if there any success to this development then kenya is going to be if not the first country in Africa to house a Bitcoin mining farm i wish other African countries will follow the same footsteps in adopting cryptocurrency in other to tap into it revenue advantage to their economy and the welfare of it citizens.

Renewable energy is the best as it saves energy cost and consumption. This will mean more miners and less cost for transaction validation and confirmation. Miners could consider this invite worth considering so that the high electricity consumption and carbon emission as Kenya happen to be the crypto hub of Africa miners can make a worthy use of this offer

Yeah, but it's all about the price you get for electricity, throwing air outside is still a fraction of the consumption, 10 cents in Sweden or 5 cents in Arizona and people will choose Arizona, mikeywith is managing to somehow run those damn machines like this



I have a feeling South America will definitely take the 3rd sport from Europe if it hasn't done so already, Europe has no cheap power while there is a ton in South America.
https://bitfarms.com/app/uploads/2021/04/2021-04-19-Bitfarms-Final-Press-Release-Argentina-Expansion.pdf



there is no way for anything in Europe to compete with stuff like this.


It doesn't work like that, the cost of mining has nothing to do with the fx fee.
The only thing the cost of mining determines is the revenue and profit of miners, dictating so how big the hashrate is.
The cost of each tx is influenced only by the activity on the network, there are 100tx in the mempool you can get a confirmation with 1 sat, and there are 100MB of more than 10sat/b prepare to wait, quite a bit.

The offer made by Kenyan energy companies does provide an alternative choice for miners. However, to prove that the energy produced can provide a commensurate benefit, it is clear that a trial must be carried out first by a representative of the company itself as a form of proof of its effectiveness. Not as well as offering it, while other factors are not considered properly. Taxes, location, temperature, and also shipping costs of mining goods. The investor would obviously be in dire need of evidence they could consider before going any further.

Geothermal power is cheaper than hydroelectric on average. And should represent something like a silver bullet to give miners reduced electricity costs in the industry.

The average broadband speed in kenya is around 10 megabits per second. Which should mean they have the broadband infrastructure necessary for miners to operate there in addition to low cost industrial power.

The average wage in parts of africa is $40 a month. Which could mean associate labor costs are far lower than average. On the flipside, crypto mining in africa could also perhaps help to elevate the average wage and create jobs.

It is a very much welcome development for miners and the crypto industry at large. I guess all these counts off the somebof the original plans of El-Salvador in trying to utilise a thermal energy for this purpose. All thank to Elon whom have drawn the attention of the world to the realisation that renewable energy sources can suit better with regards to cryptos and I wonder what would be there excuses when this is mitigated against.

I'm sure miners are making all necessary considerations in contrast to this invite. It's not always easy as a foreign company, operating in a different nation, coupled with the fact that crypto projects aren't a very welcomed one around the globe and as such, you don't just jump at an invite because it solves a single problem. It's a big move and would be squarely rationalised. Hope the Kenyan government are deep in agreement to this though.

I agree with you on this, miners should not just jump into this invite because there are so many other factors that must be considered before making such decisions must, especially when the company is a foreign one. There is a need for experience in the environment, what I notice with this development is the fact that this will give miners in Kenya who are correctly making development of the mining farm or are already into crypto mining in some form. I know Kenya is a tech support country so there must be some indigenous miners who will want to cut costs and operate better they will take advantage of this opportunity.

That’s wonderful. Renewable energy usage is at its best so this country is doing best at producing it. This is good for bitcoin mining as well as nature itself. Even I saw one interview of Elon musk where he clearly mentioned whole USA can be lighten up with the renewable energy and pointing out the usage of solar panels for the purpose.  The only thing is it’s cost and how each country look at it in building up the infrastructure for the same. They should really learn many things from the Kenya. Imagine all the cold wars regarding power consumption and high green house effects due to bitcoin mining would vanish up with this source.

It's a very nice development and indeed a good one for a country like Kenya. It will be fine if the company generates as much as it said as renewal energy. Let is lot be some kind of exergerated stats to attract investors.
I am sure this gesture will drive miners to the country and foster development. But my concern is how friendly the country's laws on cryptocurrencies are. Is the move of the company supported by the government?
Let it not be a situation that people will invest, after which the government will come up with their annoying and arbitrary laws to frustrate the whole process.

Temperature isn't exactly a huge issue, you need to move enough air fast enough, most mining gears will run just fine at 30c to 40c, it hardly gets above those temps in most places(it does go above 40c sometimes, but doesn't stay that hot for too long), but even then, a bit of underclocking will solve the issue.

The more difficult issue to deal with would be the humidity, mining in a humid place is a lot worse than mining in a hot dry place, which many people seem to overlook, moisture is worse than heat, especially if you live in coastal areas, saltwater will do more damage to your gears than temps, humidity is also a lot harder to manage than heat.

Anyway, the articles mentioned that


of course, we don't know how much they can spare, but just so you know bitcoin's current mining operations need about 15,000 MW, that's 118TWh a year.

Anyway, I think if someone wants to be "more green" would actually utilize something that lowers the carbon footprint, according to the University of Cambridge, the global gas flaring has the potential of generating 688TWh, as it stands, that's 500% more than what bitcoin mining needs, and by utilizing that, not only miners they get dirt cheap power, they will also reduce gas flaring emission that makes up about 6% of the total emission.

Some miners in the U.S have already started utilizing that "otherwise flared/wasted" gas, and I think more miners will be interested in doing something like that as opposed to sending their mining gears to Kenya, after all, "green" energy can't be that cheap.

just like someone mentioned above, corruption may deter some foreign investors to invest in this country. if they can't attract foreign miners or investors, they can always get the local support. it may improve the economic status of its people. kenya is still in the third world category, so if their people will find a way how to elevate their economic status, then why not focus first in helping their own people?

From the news source it looks like the initial plan of Kenyan Energy Company is to make use of the excess energy. Already the Energy Company have got more green energy production and this is something positive about it. When it comes to supporting its own people, the company aims in bringing foreign investment into the company. This means they earn outside the energy supplied for the mining process and never think of the market. Similar thing can't be expected out of the mining support provided to its people, because the market is volatile and the same can make the Energy Company loss it's revenue.

I find it a little ironic that the country's main electricity producer is inviting Bitcoin miners to take advantage and purchase its excess power capacity when 30% of the population still doesn't have access to electricity.^[1] Secondly, the producer is offering excess power which is generated from free underground heat and yet Kenya has expensive electricity cost. I don't know, I somehow find this invitation a little odd.

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[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/kenya/access-to-electricity-percent-of-population-wb-data.html

Transmission and distribution of electricity are very complex and very, very costly, just because you have excessive power at point A -- doesn't mean you can't be lacking the necessary power at point B, you can solve this problem if you throw enough money at it, but then transferring power will come at a great cost of money + a good amount of it will be lost in the transmission process, the person/s receiving it need to be able to afford all that extra cost added, or else, it doesn't make any sense to invest billions of dollars to send that power to the other side of the country.

Kengen isn't 100% owned by the government, so the shareholders will probably care more about how much money they can make than supplying the poor with electricity (the government too probably doesn't care), so it really makes no difference if 30% of the people have no electricity or even 70% of them, miners can bring their containers right next to the power source which means no Step-Up/Down transformers, no expensive transmission towers, which means saving billions of dollars.

Of course, I am not arguing if it's moral to sell electricity to foreign bitcoin miners while 30% of your own people are in the dark, freezing to death in winter and melting in the summer heat, of course, it's inhuman at best, but it seems like those 30% are poor and live somewhere in the countryside, so even if the company would transfer the power there, they will either not afford to pay for it, or not use even half of it, which gives the shareholders of the company the incentive to find other clients, it's pretty damn sad to see that some people in 2022 still don't have electricity at home, but it's what it is.

From this it seems like they are only interested in making profits out of the miners by imposing taxes on them and earn through them with providing them electricity that they should be providing to the normal residents of the country.They are inviting miners which is good but this should not happen at the cost of people's need there as they are suffering without electricity.So they should focus on these matters also while adjusting mining capabilities.

Energy consumption is something that BTC must solve in order to evolve to the next level that is much more widespread adoption. While this does not solve the energy consumption issue per se, it's definitely a better option in the long run and it could prompt companies that deal in renewables, to invest more in crypto and in turn push the green energy narrative onto governments who, in turn, could subsidize those same companies more and encourage new companies to put their stamp on the whole issue.

Very apt, Kenya is still a third world category. They have traces of corruption, I thought they would have gotten it right when their son became the president of America. They had a better international image then.
Still my concern that people (foreigners) will be reluctant to invest in an economy that isn't trustworthy.
Darker45 mentioned above how the country cannot satisfy the electricity need of her people let alone having excess. Everything is no looking straight though.

I understand that renewable energy is a big deal in the world right now because not only it is great for the climate, but also because it will make sure that a nation would be energy self sufficient and that is why most nations look at it.

Nobody really cares about the climate change, the whole world will become more and more inhabitable, we are looking at the summers as fire times, last year the place I was living burned to ground, it got 1km close to where I supposed to be, thankfully I ran away before it even started, and went back home, but the place I was as a holiday basically got fires all around it, with absolutely no way to get out. These are all because of climate change, and yet self sufficient energy resource is better for every nation.

15 degrees sounds really good from the perspective of someone currently baking at 30+ and is thousands of miles away from Kenya. Generally people think that the whole African continent is one big hellish kitchen with a few exceptions, but the southern part of the continent seems to be quite colder than the north and the central part.


Good information that many certainly didn't know about, and it definitely makes sense when you explain it that way. This would mean that some areas in Africa actually have the potential for crypto mining, despite having high temperatures in certain parts of the year. I looked at the situation with hydropower in Africa, and in the last 2 years the capacity was 38 GW, which is about 16 percent of total consumption, and by the end of 2040 that share could be about 25%.

It's truly great when there are examples like this, showing that crypto mining can be eco-friendly. Using geothermal power for mining is something, I believe, El Salvador was looking into, and it seems that Kenya is already doing it. And if the power is cheaper than hydroelectric, as Hydrogen suggested in the thread, that's also a good sign. But what are the laws regulating mining and crypto operations in Kenya? Are there taxes, are they reasonable? How hard is it to mine legally, and how dangerous is it to do so without legal registration?
And Darker45 raised an important point about inviting miners when a third of the population lives without electricity.

Some people that do not access electricity in Kenya will be people that are villagers, Kenya is one of the countries in Africa with good electricity, when the largest electricity producer in Kenya knows that it will be profitable for them and profitable for miners, they came up with the good idea. United States has one of the most expensive electricity in the world and have the largest bitcoin miners, the PPP in US is higher than in Kenya, I think this will be good idea.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/

Kenya have made a good decision in power generation and requesting investors invest on cryptocurrency mining out of the geothermal energy. There are discussion of transmitting the excess power generated, so that it'll bring revenue. But the real-time difficulty is big through the massive transmission loss. During the previous year Kenya have marked the highest power loss during the domestic transmission and distribution. It roughly account to 23% of the electricity produced during the year. This is why investors are asked for making use of the excess energy generated.

Whenever we talk about green and non-fossil energies I think about the cost of the devices for this kind of energy source because some people may think they green energy is always free and available so it's very much profitable for the miners to start using and consuming the green energies instead of the fossil energies buy if you consider the cost of devices required to provide these kinda energies even green energy won't guarantee anything but considering the current situation of the environment using green energies can be a good and wise option for the people and organizations who care about the environment.

Stop looking at average rates, nobody mines at national average prices!
Do you think I would still mine at around 30 cents per kwh?

Large farms in the US manage to get 2.5-5 cents deals, nobody will set up those huge MW datacenters with 16 cents/kwh , just pick any mining calculator and you'll see nobody makes money at those tariffs. What's interesting is that Kenya is even higher there at 22 cents per kwh which really picked my curiosity..

https://www.the-star.co.ke/business/kenya/2021-10-27-kenyas-electricity-cost-fourth-highest-in-africa-study-shows/
https://www.kbc.co.ke/kenya-power-needs-radical-surgery-as-first-step-to-cheaper-electricity/

And this might be the nail in the coffin for the mining deal
I don't see how the people will accept a state-owned company selling cheap electricity to miners while they are taxed 4 or 5 times more.
Behind the curtain deals, maybe, opened offers for everyone, now way!


70% means it's still government-owned, what the government wants they will do.
I've seen enough of those energy companies turning from highly profitable to a money pit because they wanted to sell stuff cheap to rank in votes for elections, of course, you're scenario is perfectly fine and I don't doubt it might happen as it did in Georgia but it's still poor planning. When you already have spare capacity the next thing is to try to invest in the infrastructure so you can deliver this, not build more and have more energy you can't sell.

I wonder what's the "fee" for an introductory meeting there. ;D

Firstly seeing more countries coming up with the creation of green electricity energy and inviting cryptocurrency miners to come to their country is totally a good sign that there will be no problem for crypto miners in the future even though some people choose to accuse the crypto mining sector of harming the atmosphere whereas the CO2 released by miners is not up to the CO2 released every day by the industrial company.

This is a good one from an African country I hope others can learn from Kenya in other to boost the economy especially now that a lot of countries are struggling.

Companies do not care about corruption, even if the place is a corrupted one, then making a profit would not be that much of a difficulty and they could easily end up with something that bribery would fix and they would be able to profit from it. I mean think about it, you will be able to profit from paying bribery towards corrupted politicians and make a lot more money that you paid for, why wouldn't you want to do that?

I am sure that they would be willing to do that very easily. Hence all of the problems you may think about Kenya, is gone when we are talking about companies liberal/capitalist enough, because it might be bad, but they are willing to do bad things for profit.

I suppose good electricity and good access to electricity are two different bananas. And while the US has indeed quite a high electricity cost in average, Kenya has higher. And despite the high electricity cost, the US has a hundred percent access to it while Kenya has only 70%. Moreover, the impact of the electricity rate of a country will highly depend on the economic capacity of its population. In which case, Kenyans are definitely burdened a lot more than the US people.

Anyway, I'm not discrediting the profitability of the idea of the electricity producer. However, there must be a whole lot of other conditions which matter so much in the overall success or failure of this idea. The overall business environment of the country is going to be a big factor as well.

30% do not have it due to distance.

here in the UK i like 20 miles from a power station. where by from the power station to my location there are 500,000 homes. meaning the cabling cost from my location to the power station is 500,000th of the price of the cable as we all pay a little bit in our bills to cover the costs of cabling, mainenance and upgrading.

however a tribal village of 30 people(10 homes) 120 miles from a power station automatically has a cost (if they managed to convince a company to cable it to them) of many times more than my costs.. which most power companies see no benefit/profit in investing in expensive cabling for such small communities especially when there are so many small communities. spread soo widely.
the costs to supply them all would never yield any ROI

and now you been schooled in why 30% are not supplied. and why those not close but within reach of a power plant are not cheap..

however if you are located right next to a power plant that also happens to have a city nearby to share the local supply cost.. then you can get it alot cheaper.
the more people sharing the cost. the more the over all cost comes down


the business idea is simple.
power plants never build to only have capacity to supply its local population of that year. they plan 60 years ahead meaning 3 generations of population growth. (3x+ current demand)

instead of waiting 20 years for an increase in demand(residential growth). meaning only working at 33% capacity in first 20 years. 66% in 20-40 then near 100% in 60+ years.. they want to be able to work at 65-95% capacity right now from day one. so that they can make more money right from day one.
this requires either convincing residents to sell their property far away and move closer, or entice businesses/industry with large energy requirements to come closer, on a more temporal contract(no 50-100year leases).

bitcoin mining is actually a good business to entice, as they can haul their asics in trucks and set up in weeks. and in a few years if the demand is too much, be told to stop and those asics can be moved out of the area very easily. (compared to other industries)

and so while waiting 20 years for residential demand that power plant can offer that capacity to bitcoin miners on 5-20 year contracts. and if residential demand does pick up, then cut off the mining contract to divert the capacity back to residential. easily and cheaply without affecting local economy

..
think of it like this.
1 asic farm requiring 3kwh per asic. with 10,000 asics in one building, employing 20 people

that 'supply contract' is the equivalent of 60,000 residents (20,000 homes)
that 'supply contract' is the equivalent of 20 product distribution warehouses (2000 employee's)

so if residential demand was to grow and the power plant had to cut the mining contract. legally speaking and local economically speaking..  it only affects 1 company and 20 employees. so its an easy decision

alot easier then trying to convince 20 warehouses/companies to move in with a risk of their lease expiring in 5-20 years. and then making 2000 local population unemployed

convincing 1 asic company or 20 product manufacturers. is an easy job to convince one asic company.
plus in 20 years, it wont affect the local economy much to make only 20 people unemployed compared to 2000+ people, where the latter would be bad for the area

Yeah, have to be honest I didn't know much about the world outside until I actually learnt on my own. Geography lessons sort of only served to emphasise film stereotypes. I actually found many parts of Africa cooler and more comfortable to live in than where I come from. I've come to find that temperature is one problem, but also cover (shrubbery, etc.), wind, dust and humidity can sometimes be far more important for comfort and durability of machinery.

Also the issue of humidity mikeywith brought up, very true and that's something we deal with a lot in Southeast Asia, but air conditioning fixes the heat and humidity problem. Something else Kenya does a bit better too that most other parts of Africa (again, because of elevation).

while UK/US are in a spring summer season.. right now kenya is entering its autumn winter season
so dont compare temperaures day to day. as its an unfair comparison to compare one places summer to another places winter

based on year average
kenya enjoys 17^oc(winter: july-august) to 21^oc(summer: feb-march)

where as say.. texas america is 13^oc to 30^oc

I know. It must be the distance. Nobody needs to be schooled about it. My country, and probably a lot of other developing countries as well, actually shares the same problems with Kenya when it comes to challenges in electricity distribution, especially in remote villages and rural areas or what my country classifies as GIDA or Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas.

However, simply citing this distance challenge is more of an excuse. It is oversimplifying things. It has to be further qualified. And it is not and cannot be acceptable. When a government is confronted with a high number of its population having no access to electricity, challenges have to be broken down into factual and specific details. The president can't just be told by his/her energy secretary, "it's distance, Mr. President," and the discussion immediately stops.

Electricity, after all, is a basic utility, a basic public service. And it means more than just a light bulb inside the house or a light post on the street. It cannot even be reduced to a simple mathematics of investment versus return. In my archipelagic country, a small distant island with a relatively small population and without any industry, cannot just be deprived of electricity. And many of such islands are with electricity.

Frankly, Franky1 you're very brilliant and intelligent. I must say the limitations of utilization Bitcoin in Africa topic was inspired by you!
Honestly, reading your profile gave me insight to write that topic.
A bit hard to assimilate at times, but, I must say you're good!  I hope you giggle and Chuckle at these, me don't flatter!!

its not a "just distance" thing..

if you take what you quoted of my message (single line out of context) then yes as a single line, it does not explain the specifics.. but funny thing is about public forums is that other people can read the whole message i posted where i explained more specific details. of why distance is a factor(with specifics aswell)

lets try going even further, heck maybe you dont like walls of text(funny to have that flaw on a text based forum) ..so lets use an image

https://i.imgur.com/YO7CPc5.png

hope that helps

i do try to keep things in 'normal-speak' wording. by using analogies and examples.. and not use much techno buzzwords, where i can avoid it. but that creates 'walls of text' of length explanation.. which some hate. which i then try to re-explain differently or even use images. so i do try to cater to the general viewer.

as for africa.
the USE of bitcoin is hard due to the fee average being more than an a couple minimum wage hours in kenya
https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_fee - time of post over $1.50 (year average)
https://www.blockchain.com/charts/fees-usd-per-transaction - time of post over $1.50 (month average)
https://www.minimum-wage.org/international/kenya - $0.40/hour ($830 per year /52wk /40hour)

but if they have the right location near a cheap cost power producer thats green and has alot of excess capacity not being used.. then why not go for it.

however. again mentioning the minimum wage costs..
the cost of buying just 1 asic of say 140terrahash (~$12k) works out as being 30,000 labour hours to save up enough money to buy one.

where as an american/brit. at ~$10 an hour can afford one within 1200 labour hours (25x less time)
yep what would be for an american is 0.6(31 weeks) of yearly minimum wage. but is 14x(14 years) of kenyan minimum wage
so i doubt local kenyans will be mining bitcoin in kenya and this invitation is more so for US/Brits to move to kenya and mine cheap

Whether this would be beneficial or not entirely depends on how the powering company and miners reside in the region. Just having geothermal energy does not mean it will benefit the miners. There goes so much planning setting up the miners around this plant. Considering it’s “geothermal” meaning the region has huge heated up climate which will hamper the mining conditions a lot. Like they might need extra electricity for cooling them down.

Also after reading few posts in the thread it seems the electricity won’t be that cheap as compared to traditional one. If they are in for extra energy production then wondering why other businesses are not blooming in that region?

Could it be Geo location ?

kenGen seizes opportunities faster,welcome to kenya on a very good agenda.some countries are already bitcoin literate.and these miners are contributors and earners of foreign exchange earning productively from day to day.Very suitable,reference resource for an industry If in the majority of countries that are aware of the importance of the economy, it will certainly open up equal opportunities and be legally (known to the government) and open. Bitcoin is indeed not entirely legal in a country that has not acquired it. Of course, this is not always the case.
miners are the resilience of the network and bitcoin is the source of the unrestricted economy.good job kenGen

If this happens it would be awesome I would love to see a green mining and my joy is greatest seeing a developing country like Kenya doing this, one of the biggest global problem about mining has definitely been the fact that it isn’t all that eco friendly and if this issue can be resolved I think many people who have more reason to adopt it especially those who firmly advocate for a more environmental approach.

geo thermal does not mean all of kenya has warm ground..

EG iceland is a cold climate. yet they have geo thermal energy

it means within a mountain (usually inactive volcano). a power company built a facility that drills deep into the mountain/ground and uses the heat from far far underground to then power the turbines..
it then has electric cable bringing the electric away from the immediate area where a couple miles away businesses connect to the grid, no where near the mountain/volcano/geothermal hotspot.

yep only a few hundred metres away can be where you wouldnt even know geothermal ground was there.
..
as for the businesses question
many businesses have to analyse the feasibility of running a business. EG retail requires customers, meaning they will only set up in a region where there is enough population to sell enough product to make profit. even companies given 100% tax breaks, and free electric or free building leases dont just turn up without atleast knowing if they are going to have customers to sell product to.. and also employable people to work in the business.

however bitcoin mining doesnt need to care about population numbers. or need to build any fancy glittery retail stores. they can literally turn up in shipping containers. plug in the electric and start mining, which is why this would be appealing for bitcoin miners

as the link said in the topic post.

kenya has a capacity of 10,000MW but only using 800MW, meaning they are only running at 8% capacity and not earning a potential 92% right now.
they would love to be running at a few thousand MW and get more income, which would then bring the average price per kwh down as the power plant costs can be diluted by the more power used.

Thanks for the effort of illustrating your point. But that's the same line of argument. The same set of words translated into a picture. Again, electricity is a public utility. It is a basic service. Everyone deserves it however remote one's village or community is from urban centers. The government is tasked to ensure that the country's population have access to it and enjoy its benefits. The big difference between the government and private companies is that the former is service-oriented while the latter is profit-oriented. It could get involved in multi-billion projects without a direct ROI. That further means the former, unlike the latter, doesn't always measure things in monetary gains or even numbers. We have an island somewhere in the middle of the ocean hundreds of kilometers away from the mainland with only less than a couple hundred citizens in less than 50 families. Although its people cannot enjoy the kind of lifestyle large cities could offer, at the very least the National Power Corporation provides them electricity.

Apologies, OP, for the off-topic discussion.

Miners really need partnerships such as this one because they were being attacked by those who made propaganda that they are one of the main reasons for the current global warming which is not true. If they worked with this company and made every bitcoin miners use green energy, their critics would shut their mouths and look for other false information but when it comes to power consumption the people will likely believe what those critics have said. so they really need to consider trying this one in order to preserve the miner's future.

Of course not comparing day to day but giving an idea of how cold it can be there and just how suitable it does appear to me. The dust is a problem though, it always seems to be clogging up machines, filters, fans, but I did mention this as part of other factors that all need to be looked in combination if you wanted to mine.

I think the cold (low comparison) is pretty cool but the high comparison actually is more impressive... 30 degrees in Texas compared to 21 degrees in Kenya? Pretty cool.

In the Corruption Perceptions Index 2021 Kenya is ranked 128th out of 180 countries for corruption, tied with seven other countries, including Bolivia, Azerbijan, Laos, and Paraguay - Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Kenya  (So they are doing very well or they are very good at hiding it)  ::)

In any way, the price of the electricity that are provided...should make provision for some discount to the miners to run air-conditioning 24/7... because the temperatures are quite high for Bitcoin mining to be profitable.  ::)

That is very nice news!

I always support greener ways of producing electricity. And if you couple that with Bitcoin you can get a nice PR package for two things we should all support.

It doesn't matter where in this world someone mines their Bitcoin. A huge plus that people never seem to mention.

Furthermore more miners will help boost Kenya's economy. Win win  :P

there actually is a difference.
for instance
kazahkstan industrial mining has about $0.04/KWH rate of electric(once you include everything needed)

US residential (home hobby mining) is about $0.12/kwh
EU/UK is about $0.24 average
places like japan/germany can be upto $0.39

so each different region has different costs.
its where the 'value' window' kicks in of 0.04-0.39 which converts to different mining costs.

whereby right now kazahkstan for instance is mining cheaply and able to sell at $30k for a profit. where as japan are not able to mine cheaply but see that buying bitcoin at $30k is 2.5x cheaper than wasting money mining. so they will just buy it cheap.

kenya offering to accept bitcoin miners would need to tempt them with cheap electric costs worthy of setting up in the area.

..
its also worth noting the regions average electric prices to get a sentiment of value if you learn how to calculate mining costs because with energy prices rises, many asic farms on electric supply contracts of X month terms, might expire and have to pay new rates, which affect the value window.
also looking at the different rates in different regions helps you understand the 'support lines' and resistance lines of the markets by knowing where most people think its either cheaper to mine or buy when prices pass over these thresholds.

EG if bitcoin passes over a certain level americans flip from being cheap BTC buyers to cheap miners(to sell) so the sentiment flips over in favour of more sellers than buyers at certain support lines
..
in regards to kenya. because they are moving out of the international trade of fossil fuel their energy costs might become less impacted by the world wide rise in energy prices (the more self sustainable they are the cheaper they can offer electric).