Two recent research reports have proposed new approaches to the electricity situation in Ireland and Ukraine: Bitcoin mining can serve as a flexible load, absorbing idle electricity that cannot be connected to the grid, converting previously wasted energy into real income, and providing a new solution to the energy infrastructure problem.

Ireland: Absorbing wind power curtailment and increasing wind farm revenue.

Wind power development in Ireland has outpaced grid construction, forcing a large amount of wind power to be curtailed. The curtailment rate is expected to rise from 10.1% in 2024 to 11.4% in 2025. A model from Energy Economics calculates that a 100 MW wind farm paired with 20 MW of mining facilities can absorb 83% of the curtailed wind, increasing the total revenue of the wind farm by 32%; expanding the mining scale to 30 MWh can absorb 93% of idle wind power, but the utilization rate of mining machines will decrease. This model has requirements for the energy consumption of mining machines; only new-generation mining machines with an energy consumption of 16J/TH are feasible. Older equipment is difficult to profit from, and returns are also affected by the price of Bitcoin and the total network hashrate.

Ukraine: Locally absorbing nuclear power capacity to aid post-war energy reconstruction.

Due to the conflict, Ukraine’s power transmission facilities were damaged, preventing many nuclear power plants from transmitting power. The Bitcoin Policy Institute suggests deploying modular mining equipment around nuclear power plants, which can be operational in 6-9 months, far faster than the years-long, multi-billion dollar reconstruction of power lines. The 750 MW mining capacity is expected to generate approximately $1 billion in revenue over five years, used to repay energy reconstruction debt. Mining loads can be flexibly started and stopped, prioritizing residential electricity needs.

Similar practices already exist globally, but implementation still needs to move from academia to practice.

Currently, the model of using Bitcoin mining to absorb excess electricity has been piloted in several countries. Texas in the US is using cryptocurrency mining as a supplementary renewable energy source for interruptible loads; Paraguay is utilizing surplus hydropower capacity for mining; and even before the outbreak of conflict, energy companies in Ukraine had already studied the idea of ​​integrating mining centers with nuclear power plants.

The cases of Ireland and Ukraine expand the application scenarios of Bitcoin mining in energy planning. If these solutions move from academic models to real-world projects, other countries may shift their focus from solely the overall electricity consumption of mining to how to convert idle energy that the grid cannot absorb into economic output.