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January 04, 2018, 12:02:28 PM |
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To understand why China is cracking down on power use by bitcoin miners, have a look at curtailment.
The practice -- where producers of wind and solar power cease generation because the entire electricity system is oversupplied -- has been a major problem for the country in recent years. In the northwestern provinces of Xinjiang and Gansu, as much as one-third of wind generation and a quarter of solar was curtailed in the first half of 2017, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Fossil-fuel generating plants have been idle for more than half of the time, and across all fuels, utilization rates have barely broken above 12 hours a day since 2014.
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