When temperatures are high, businesses and residents turning on air conditioning pushes the Texas power grid to it's limits.

So when the state began encouraging crypto mining companies to relocate there, critics said it was a move that could push the grid past it's limits, causing blackouts throughout the state.

Now with the miners and government working together, that won't be a concern.... 

Riot Blockchain is the biggest participant, they represents 2% of the total processing power of the Bitcoin network with 43,458 operational miners. 

Located in in Rockdale, Texas, they've agreed to pause the mining when the state needs power elsewhere - and today they did just that, as temperatures hit 104 degrees they began shutting off much of its equipment as not to require more energy from the local electrical system.

According to Jason Les, CEO of Riot Blockchain, the facilities have “the ability to be flexible enough to feed power back into the grid when there is high demand.”

While this keeps the peace between existing residents and businesses and the newly-arrived crypto miners - we don't yet know at what cost...

What we don't know is how many total hours miners will be asked to power down throughout the summer when high temperatures begin around noon and continue until around 8pm. This could cause a loss of 1/3 of their revenue on days they're asked to power down while temperatures are high.

While mining companies haven't shared any plans to address this, we can't help but notice one obvious solution - solar. Specifically batteries that store solar generated power (think Tesla powerwall).  While this still probably wouldn't keep the mining going for a full 8 hours on a day they've been asked to disconnect from the grid from Noon to 8pm, it could cut their downtime in half.
 ------- 

Author: Justin Derbek
New York News Desk
Breaking Crypto News