A vast majority of the Bitcoin miners who mine at the industrial level in Texas have all agreed to suspend all Bitcoin mining for the meantime as the state ways out a heat wave that is expected to test their electricity grid to the limits.
The council responsible for managing their electricity grid, the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) issued a request that residents of Texas should conserve as much energy as they can by limiting heavy-power functions in their lives to avoid the power outages that often follow natural phenomena like the looming heat wave incoming.
Texas has a history of power outages during winter storms with the most recent occurrence last year that left several hundred dead. The council is trying to ensure that the heat wave doesn’t result in power outages that can lead to death.
As reported by Bloomberg, Texas set a record for the all-time peak energy use of 78,306 Megawatts on Friday. The previous record of 77,460 was set back on July 5th. President of the Texas Blockchain Association, Lee Bratcher told Bloomberg that over 1,000 watts in mining load have already been cut down in response to the council’s request.
He said that amount represents about 1% of the total Bitcoin mining load in Texas and will give back the grid about 1% of its total capacity for retail and commercial purposes.
Texas has become a gold mine for miners due to the welcoming leaders and authorities and some very liberal regulations. Meanwhile, one of its rivals by hash rate (computing power), New York has left mining in a precarious situation last month after the New York Senate passed a two-year moratorium on the practice.
New York Governor has the final say in that decision but Foundry’s CEO, Kevin Zhang believes that such policies will scare off miners from the state. The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott has taken a different approach to miners believing that incorporating policies that favor miners could be the remedy to Texas’ unstable grid by being their much-needed incentive to create more facilities to generate power.
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