Japanese Energy Giant TEPCO Power Grid will Mine Bitcoin with Access Energy

The crypto community has repeatedly stated that bitcoin mining might make use of surplus power that is currently unused due to a lack of demand. As a result, several energy giants are mining cryptocurrency to capitalize on their grid’s excess power.

In line with this, Tokyo Electric Power Grid (TEPCO), a Japanese energy giant, proposed plans to utilize surplus power to mine cryptocurrency. The company plans to enter the crypto-mining industry via its subsidiary firm, Agile Energy X.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, also known as Toden or TEPCO, is a Japanese electric utility holding company that serves a large portion of Japan. In 2007, TEPCO was forced to shut down its Nuclear Power Plant due to a massive earthquake. That year, it suffered its first loss in 28 years.

This was not TEPCO's first major loss; in 2009, 2011, and 2012, the company was impacted by natural disasters and experienced losses. However, in July 2012, TEPCO received 1 trillion Yen from the Japanese government in order to safeguard the company from collapsing. Currently, TEPCO is one of Japan's largest utility companies, with a market capitalization of around $6 billion.

So, coming back to the topic, TEPCO with its subsidiary firm inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a Japanese local hardware manufacturer, TRIPLE-1. The MoU aims to build distributed data centers across the country that use TRIPLE-1 mining equipment to capitalize on the excess renewable energy.

According to TEPCO, the project's goal is to "make effective use of surplus energy" by creating new demand for crypto mining and AI computation. The company further added that the three companies have already established a demo project in Tokyo.

This clearly indicates that the energy giant is working hard to capitalize on unused electricity, as Japan has the ability to generate excess renewable energy in the future.

What do you think, will other major energy companies undertake similar initiatives to utilize surplus electricity? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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