A Blueprint for Bitcoin Mining and Energy in Africa
Reducing the electricity-access gap in underprivileged regions with minigrids and small-scale bitcoin data centers: An open-source blueprint for advancing power infrastructure in Africa and beyond.
This document is from the learnings by Gridless on how combining small-scale bitcoin data centers and renewables-based minigrids forms the foundation of a new model to expand profitable electrification to communities in emerging markets without the need for charity, aid, gifts, or government subsidy. The main challenge is that minigrids have a low ROI and are not economically viable without subsidies due to their high CAPEX cost, low initial consumption, and long payback period.
After decades of minigrid development there still isn’t a mobile and flexible consumer of energy, which in turn has throttled the growth of this type of energy development. Bitcoin data centers are just that.
The co-location of small-scale Bitcoin mining and renewables-based microgrids helps to address the problem of stranded renewable energy. By providing a consistent and reliable demand for electricity, Bitcoin mining helps to utilize excess renewable energy that might otherwise go to waste, thereby unlocking the potential of stranded renewable energy projects and contributing to a more sustainable energy future.
Bitcoin data centers are extremely flexible as to when they use electricity and how much of it they use. With automated real-time demand leveling they ramp consumption up and down as much as needed at a moment’s notice relative to the minigrid’s overall supply. This uncommon feature allows bitcoin data centers to play three crucial roles as:
buyer of first resort, purchasing energy when there is no other demand;
buyer of last resort, buying when nobody else has a use for that energy;
grid-balancer of last resort, providing demand-response ancillary services to keep the minigrid always stable.
The Green Africa Mining Alliance (GAMA.Africa) is gathering the information on how we each work on electricity and bitcoin mining in Africa, and then releasing that information for others to learn from. This will take place over time, so expect a growing body of knowledge over time that others can also help add to.