Ukraine to Build Large Bitcoin Mining Data Center at State Nuclear Power Plant

The Ukrainian government-owned nuclear power plant has commissioned a company to build a large data center in Rivna to carry out Bitcoin mining operations. After a bidding process, the nuclear power plant selected Kyiv Energy Construction Company to handle the Bitcoin mining project at the nuclear power plant.

Nuclear power plant operator expected to launch mining data center in 2022

The data center will be built at the Rovna nuclear power plant after the construction company received funding of UAH 8.92 million ($317,620), according to official documents. The only competitor in the tender was Ukrenergobudproek. However, regional news outlet Forklog said they had submitted an expensive offer.

Kyiv Energia Construction hopes to complete the construction of the data center by August 31, 2022. According to the announcement, the contractor must send documents detailing the entire process. It includes "host status registers, electronic archives and computing facilities."

In terms of technical details, the nuclear power plant has a capacity of 2657 MW and was built in the late 1970s. Moreover, the operation of the state-owned nuclear facility began in the early 1980s.

In October 2020, the nuclear power plant also signed a memorandum of understanding with a subsidiary of cryptocurrency mining giant Bitfury. With the new data center, local media believe that Bitfury miners can move their operations to the nuclear power plant's facilities.

Ukraine’s Interest in Building Crypto Mining Data Centers at Nuclear Power Plants

The deal between Ukrainian nuclear power plants and Kyiv Energy Construction is not surprising. In fact, Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy asked the IAEA in May 2020 to conduct a study to assess the feasibility of crypto mining at its nuclear power plants.

As a rumored fact about crypto mining at Ukrainian nuclear power plants, the country's security services discovered illegal crypto mining equipment at a nuclear power plant in 2019.

Illegal mining equipment was found in the southern region of Ukraine. In addition, the investigation determined that such illegal equipment violated "state secrets."