Iceland restricts new Bitcoin miners’ access to electricity.

No new requests for electricity from Bitcoin mining operations will be allowed by Iceland energy utility provider after December 7.

Landsvirkjun, Iceland’s national electricity provider, has reduced the amount of power it will offer to certain companies, including aluminum smelters and Bitcoin miners.

A representative from the island’s power utility stated that due to a variety of issues, including a problem at a power station, low hydro-reservoir levels, and accessing energy from an external supplier, the island’s power utility has been forced to reduce energy allocations to southwestern Bitcoin miners and various industrial facilities.

Mining businesses have long been drawn to the region because of its availability of geothermal energy, which is harnessed to produce a cheap and abundant supply of renewable energy. According to Landsvirkjun, all new requests for power from mining activities would be refused beginning December 7 for an undetermined amount of time.

The three major Bitcoin mining businesses that have built operations in Iceland are Canada’s Hive Blockchain Technologies, Genesis Mining, and Bitfury Holding.

For over a decade, miners in Iceland have attempted to achieve the promise of environmentally responsible Bitcoin mining. Cloud Hashing relocated 100 miners to Iceland in 2013. HydroMiner GmbH, an Austrian business, raised around $2.8 million in its initial coin offering (ICO) in November 2017 to deploy mining rigs directly at Icelandic power stations.

Nonrenewable energy accounts for less than 1% of total power generation in the country.

The distribution failure has had the greatest impact on the country’s aluminum smelting industry. Aluminum prices increased 1.1 percent on December 7 to reflect the supply constraint caused by a recent jump in demand and the current power supply shortfall.

Green blockchain efforts will be popular globally in 2021. The energy-intensive Bitcoin mining was addressed by thought leaders during the COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland. The GloCha United Citizens Organization (UCO) for Climate Empowerment was launched at the meeting. It will use blockchain technology to further climate change goals.

Patrick

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