Can Brazil Become the World's Green Cryptocurrency Mining Hub?

Brazil is facing a problem that sounds like a dream for cryptocurrency miners: it has too much clean electricity. Wind and solar farms are generating far more electricity than the grid can handle.

In some cases, as much as 70% of the energy is wasted, costing power companies nearly $1 billion over the past two years. For miners, this is a golden opportunity.

At least six cryptocurrency companies are currently in talks with Brazilian energy companies to use this surplus electricity. Renova Energia is investing $200 million in Bahia, building six wind-powered data centers. 

“We realized that by providing the entire infrastructure (for crypto mining), we were one step ahead of our competitors,” said Renova CEO Sergio Brasil.

Tether is drawing power from newly acquired sugar mills. Enegix, a cryptocurrency mining company from Kazakhstan, is testing mobile data centers that can be connected directly to power plants. Even Bitmain, one of the world's largest mining hardware companies, is exploring the market.

Why Brazil works
Cryptocurrency mining is flexible. Mining operations can scale up when electricity is cheap and plentiful, and scale back when demand is high. This makes miners ideal partners for power companies that have trouble selling excess power.

“There's a lot of potential,”   said John Blount , co-founder of Enegix.

Brazil’s renewable energy growth has been fueled by government incentives. But transmission infrastructure has not kept pace, causing wind and solar power to stagnate. Mining companies see an opportunity to turn wasted electricity into profit.

Energy providers are taking notice. Casa dos Ventos, TotalEnergies, and Atlas Renewable Energy are exploring cryptocurrency partnerships. Eletrobras has even installed ASIC miners powered by wind and solar microgrids as part of pilot projects.