Russian Energy Ministry Wants to Cut Crypto Miners’ Power During Energy Shortages
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 Energy Ministry wants the power to disconnect crypto miners from energy grids, as Bitcoin miners continue to ramp up capacity.
The news comes after claims that Russian players mined some $3.5 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) last year.
Vedomosti quoted Yevgeny Grabchak, Russia’s Deputy Minister of Energy, as stating that power providers should have the power to “disconnect” miners “from the power supply” at “any time.”
However, Grabchak reasserted assertions made by the Russian Energy Ministry earlier this year. Officials claimed last month that power firms may soon provide miners with surplus power.
“Miners are a new category of consumers. We are discussing them quite actively now. We don’t always have electricity consumption peaks. There is often free capacity on grids, when there are no heavy loads on networks.”
The Russian Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilev said, at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin this month, that crypto miners “should be prepared to move to parts of the country where there is no energy capacity shortage.”
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Grabchak, meanwhile, said that the industry would be allowed to choose if it wanted to self-limit its power usage or use “automatic” IT solutions. He explained:
“When there is no capacity deficit – as is the case for most of the year – we may give excess capacity to some consumers. But this can only be done if they limit their consumption. Alternatively, they can install automatic solutions that would disconnect them
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