Can Texan Power Grid Sustain Additional Bitcoin Mining?

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Last Updated on 30 November 2021 by CryptoTips.eu

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The February 2021 winter storm that highlighted the weakness of Texas’s power grid was captured with the Ted Cruz meme. The popular Republican senator from the ‘biggest state in the union’ was photographed boarding a flight to sunny Cancun, Mexico, while many Texas were freezing to death.

He later tried to blame the ‘obvious mistake’ on his daughters, who had urged him to take the weekend off. Mr Cruz might have even blown his chances of running for President in 2024 with that story, which has been following him ever since.

However, what it also highlighted is that Texas, no matter how big the state, has an old power grid which needs modernizing. And certainly now that the Chinese bitcoin miners have moved in massive numbers to either Texas, USA or to the Asian country of Kazakhstan, crypto is in dire need of more energy near Austin and Dallas.

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2022 winter questions linger

Texas is now one of the favorite destinations for miners, after China decided to oust them from its territory in May of this year (which led to a Bitcoin price drop in June and July).

However, the massive influx of crypto miners into the state comes with worries for next winter. Local media remembers very well that some 5 million people living in Texas had been without power for several days as they faced an extreme cold spell.

Following this incident, the management of the state power grid, provided by ERCOT, was then the subject of an in-depth review in February 2021.

The state government of Texas has not yet issued any proposals to regulate the surge in demand for electricity caused by increased cryptocurrency mining activity. Crypto miners, for their part, try to reassure the local population through collaborations with local electricity suppliers, in order to maintain the stability of the network. Miners are also showing their willingness to use electricity produced by renewable energy sources.

In any case, if Texas gets hit by another wintery spell in January or February of 2022, it will be interesting to see whether Bitcoin mining, and probably the price of the biggest crypto coin in circulation, suffers as a consequence.