Russian Bitcoin Mining Hotspot Set for Energy Boost
Tim Alper is a British journalist and features writer who has worked at Cryptonews.com since 2018. He has written for media outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, and Chosun Ilbo. He has also worked...
The Russian Bitcoin mining hotspot of Buratiya will get an energy upgrade, with a revamped thermal power plant set to come online “before the end of 2029.”
Per the state-run news agency TASS, the new power plant “will generate not only heat, but also electricity.”
The move will help Buratiya “create a power reserve.” And this will help Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatia, deal with an “increasing load on the power grid,” its government said.
A sharp rise in crypto mining has been blamed for this load. President Vladimir Putin this year noted that Buratiya and other areas have suffered from a rise in BTC mining.
Putin and others have claimed that miners are straining power grids in the area. Buratiya is currently served by the Gusinoozerskaya TTP, a Soviet-era construction completed in the late 1970s.
The plant suffered damage in June 2022, when a transformer failure and subsequent fire cut power off for several days.
“The project will [let us add] two more power units at Gusinoozerskaya. There will be an additional reserve.”
The Buryatia local government is so confident of the plant’s success that it has claimed it will be able to provide 300 MW of power to neighboring Mongolia.
The local power provider is reportedly looking to spend over $418 million on the “modernization” project.
The plans to bring the “TPP-2” station online date back to late Soviet times. The Soviet project managers began work on it in the 1980s, and even managed to bring a steam boiler online in 1991.
However, the project has remained unfinished ever since –
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