Power plant in New York set up its own Bitcoin mining farm!

[Lucius]

In the ongoing bombardment with news that Bitcoin mining is threatening the environment and that it is responsible for raising global temperature from its 0.2% of total global electricity consumption, the following example shows us that it is possible to generate electricity for the community and to mine Bitcoin in very smart economic/environmental mode.

Power plant in New York (working on natural gas), decided to use the surplus energy to focus on mining and it is install 7000 miners at its plant. The plant produces a total of 106 megawatts, and it is using 15 megawatts for mining. At current time they mine 5.5 BTC per day, which will allow them to reach ROI in the next three years.

This is a great example of entrepreneurial thinking, and utilizing surplus electricity that generates profit in this way.

This Utility Heats New York State—And Mines Its Own Bitcoin

[FanatMonet]

In their conditions, this is probably the best solution, unless of course they had other options for selling this surplus energy to the public or industrial enterprises. Well, or alternatively, mining BTC is more profitable for them than selling this energy.

[avikz]

I would call it a smart business decision. Usualy power plants sell their unused power to other power companies or send it to the national electricity grid. Technically it is not possible to store large amount of electricity for a long ime. So using excess energy to run a bitcoin mining farm, is a smart decision which would definitely have a positive impact on its books!

[hotmom]

In fact, 5.5 bitcoins is a good result. I thought it was much worse.

[TimtheYoutuber]

Seems like NY would be the worst place to run a mining farm considering the extremely high taxes among other high costs.

[Artemis3]

In the ongoing bombardment with news that Bitcoin mining is threatening the environment and that it is responsible for raising global temperature from its 0.2% of total global electricity consumption, the following example shows us that it is possible to generate electricity for the community and to mine Bitcoin in very smart economic/environmental mode.

Power plant in New York (working on natural gas), decided to use the surplus energy to focus on mining and it is install 7000 miners at its plant. The plant produces a total of 106 megawatts, and it is using 15 megawatts for mining. At current time they mine 5.5 BTC per day, which will allow them to reach ROI in the next three years.

This is a great example of entrepreneurial thinking, and utilizing surplus electricity that generates profit in this way.

Yes its nice of them to put to use that heat, but that ROI can suddenly go from 3 to 6 or 7 years after May. BUT, after 4 years (with 3 remaining) halving hits again and now the ROI adds 7 or 8 more years... Kinda like cloud mining.

You have to be very careful when setting up a large farm, EVEN if you own the power generator, it is critical that its operation is cheap enough. Or perhaps you have a diversified source of income (like selling electricity to others, not just mining).

When you say ROI is 3 years it sounds (dangerously) like the average American miner. In my country you could achieve ROI in 3 months. I think those large miners will move to where the electricity/fuel is cheaper. New York State doesn't appear to be that cheap.

[seoincorporation]

We could say the energy is free for them, so, 5.5BTC/day isn't a bad deal at all. Maybe that income isn't big if we compare it with the amount of money generated with the plant but is a nice backup. They should save those coins until they hit the moon.

[Kakmakr]

A lot of people seem to think that China are the dominant country in the mining scene, but I have watched more than one Youtube video on massive mining farms, situated in Canada and the USA that are mining on a large scale. These mining operations have multiple hangers full of Bitcoin and Alt coin miners, so the western countries are slowly catching up to China now.

The heading of this article says it heats New York state, but it does not say anything about it in the actual article, it would be interesting to see how much electricity is saved by re-using the heat generated from the mining. 

[Lucius]

Yes its nice of them to put to use that heat, but that ROI can suddenly go from 3 to 6 or 7 years after May. BUT, after 4 years (with 3 remaining) halving hits again and now the ROI adds 7 or 8 more years... Kinda like cloud mining.

I have to admit that I was checking the news from several sources, and that what I wrote about ROI may be wrong/inaccurate. The facility was renovated and the total cost was about $65 million, so investment in mining rigs is included in this price. Considering that at the current price, the power plant mines 5.5 BTC per day ($43000) it gives them around $15,7 million per year which will change with halving/by changing the price.

When you say ROI is 3 years it sounds (dangerously) like the average American miner. In my country you could achieve ROI in 3 months. I think those large miners will move to where the electricity/fuel is cheaper. New York State doesn't appear to be that cheap.

You didn't understand the essence of the story, they are not big miners, and they only use surplus energy produced from their plant. They will not move anywhere, because mining is not their primary activity.

“We are in a favorable market position regardless of how the halving materializes,” said Tim Rainey, chief financial officer at Greenidge. “Due to our unique position as a co-generation facility, we are able to make money in down markets so that we’re available to catch the upside of volatile price swings.”

[amishmanish]

Power plant are in fact uniquely suitable for such a setup. A lot of considerations like draft, cable routing, efficient circuit breakers etc. is taken care of by the already available infrastructure. The people working there also have perfect knowledge of maintaining electrical as well as communication networks in their most efficient state.
This is one of the reasons why Chinese miners were so easily finding willing partnership with Hydel power generation utilities.

One thing that does come up is that developed countries in the West will find it harder to compete in terms of mining because of the associated manpower costs. For example, the people working at this NY mine would definitely be receiving some sorts of bonuses/ payment for rendering the services to the farm. In a place like China/ India, you can just teach a very semi-skilled worker about the right knobs and the right parameters to watch, pay him something like 10 USD a day and get the same results post the initial setup.