About 87% of British Columbia’s electricity is generated by hydropower, which has sparked immense interest from crypto miners.
The government of British Columbia expressed hope that the suspension will relieve the province's power constraints.
In the Canadian province of British Columbia will halt all new electricity-connection requests from cryptocurrency miners.
The British Columbia government announced the pause in a statement on December 21, stating that the pause will allow the government and BC Hydro to develop a permanent framework that can effectively balance the needs of crypto miners and the region's residents and businesses.
The move, according to Josie Osborne, Minister of Energy, Mines, and Low Carbon Innovation, was made to preserve the clean energy it provides for its residents and businesses, which creates jobs and is more environmentally friendly.
BC Hydro currently serves seven cryptocurrency mining operations. Six more, totaling 273 megawatts, are in the advanced stages of connection to the system and are not expected to be impacted.
However, new cryptocurrency mining projects will be unable to begin the process of connecting with BC Hydro, and projects in the early stages of the connection process will also be halted, it said, adding that 21 cryptocurrency mining projects are currently requesting a total of 1,403 megawatts of electricity.
According to the Ministry, this is equivalent to the energy required to power approximately 570,000 homes or 2.1 million electric vehicles in the province each year.
The British Columbia hydro and power authority issued a report titled Crypto conundrum in December 2022, warning that an "unprecedented level" of requests for crypto mining operations could potentially strain the available energy supply and lead to higher electricity rates for B.C. residents. It stated:
Statistics showed that, at an estimated "204.5 TWh per year," Bitcoin's annualized electricity consumption peaked in early 2022, breaking all previous records. This amount was higher than Finland's annual power consumption.
New York recently imposed a moratorium on proof-of-work (PoW) mining, making it the first state in the United States to do so, prohibiting any new mining operations that do not use 100% renewable energy.
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