Russia to Supply Electricity to Kazakhstan’s Cryptocurrency Miners

[fennic]

Russia is preparing to provide Kazakhstan with additional energy needed to operate crypto mining farms in the Central Asian nation. New arrangements will allow Kazakhstan’s miners to buy electricity directly from the Russian power generation and distribution giant Inter RAO.

Miners in Kazakhstan to Source Energy From the Russian Federation
Crypto mining enterprises operating in Kazakhstan will be able to rely on electricity produced in neighboring Russia to power their energy-hungry hardware. To allow that, the two partnering nations will amend a bilateral agreement governing the coordinated operation of their energy systems.

The government in Moscow has already ordered the necessary changes and begun preparations to organize the supply of power for Kazakhstan’s crypto mining sector, the crypto news page of the Russian business information portal RBC unveiled.

In accordance with the new arrangements, Inter RAO, which holds monopoly on the export and import of electricity in Russia, will be able to sell in Kazakhstan under contracts concluded on commercial terms directly with the mining firms working there.

With its low, subsidized electricity rates, Kazakhstan attracted numerous mining companies after the Chinese government cracked down on the industry last year. The subsequent surge in consumption was blamed for the power shortages and multiple breakdowns of the country’s aging energy infrastructure. In January, Kazakh authorities temporarily shut down around 200 mining facilities.

Note Article Link: https://news.bitcoin.com/russia-to-supply-electricity-to-kazakhstans-cryptocurrency-miners/

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Well, if done properly so it also covers Kaza's non-crypto mining loads it's obviously good for crypto farms there. The main down side is that it of course gives Russia a non-scantionable source of income... The other drawback is that once the power start flowing it makes a large leverage point to make sure Kazakhstan tows the line towards Russia.

Thing is, as I recall many of the farms are/were located far away from Kaza's grid and were using power from local coal-fired plants. They will either have to relocate to where there are ties to the grid or someone needs to run transmissions out to those remote areas...

[mikeywith]

Bad news on top of bad news, the difficulty is going to have an 11% jump even before this thing comes to reality, so now we have to deal with the U.S large players who have an "unlimited" supply of money and the Kazakh's miners who will have dirty cheap power, all of this in the middle of a brutal bear market.

The main down side is that it of course gives Russia a non-scantionable source of income

How is that a downside?

[Daltonik]

They did it last year because in November 2021 there was an unplanned (over the daily limit) daily flow of electricity from Russia to Kazakhstan amounted to 1.5 GW per day, Russia additionally provided 400 GW by the end of 2021. It's just that Inter RAO previously sold a significant amount of cheap electricity from the excess generation of Siberian hydroelectric power plants to China, but after the introduction of measures to squeeze out miners, the flow of electricity to Kazakhstan from Russia increased by more than 10%.