Bitmain is reportedly looking for cheap energy in Norway and Sweden

On April 10, according to foreign media reports, cryptocurrency miners are rushing to move to Norway and Sweden, hoping to use the cheap hydropower and low temperatures there to generate electricity and cool servers.

Cryptocurrency mining firms seek cheap energy in Norway and Sweden

Iceland has long been the most popular location in Europe for cryptocurrency miners. But commercial electricity prices in Sweden and Norway are 6.5 euro cents and 7.1 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour, respectively, lower than Iceland's 8 cents and far below the European average of 11 cents.

That’s good news for Swedish power company Vattenfall and Norwegian state-owned hydropower company Statkraft. While providing electricity to crypto miners is a small part of their current business, the two state-owned companies said they see it as an opportunity.

The process is energy-intensive. Miners plug thousands of servers at a time into powering computers to produce cryptocurrency by solving mathematical equations.

This year, bitcoin miners will use about 130 megawatt-hours of energy, according to Morgan Stanley, which is equivalent to Argentina’s consumption or the projected use of all electric vehicles in the world by the mid-2020s.

“We are looking for as much electricity as possible around the world,” said Olivier Lucie-Newton, director and co-founder of Canada’s HIVE blockchain technology group, which began mining Ethereum in Sweden in January.

The company said it is expanding the capacity of its crypto mining operations in Sweden to 17.4 megawatts, and further funding will increase it to 26.8 megawatts by September. Last month, the company agreed to acquire the data center of Norway’s Kolos for $9.9 million to expand its mining operations.

In March, the US mining company Bitfury opened a new $35 million mining data center in Norway. The miner will purchase 350 million watt-hours of pure clean energy from local renewable energy supplier Helgeland Kraft.

Bill Tai, a member of Bitfury's board of directors, said many bitcoin miners are considering regions including China because of their abundant and cheap hydroelectric power.

China’s Bitmain, the world’s largest bitcoin miner, which recently set up a subsidiary in Switzerland, has also been examining the potential in Sweden and Norway, according to two industry sources.

China accounts for about 70% of global cryptocurrency mining, but concerns about pollution from coal-fired power generation have forced them to look elsewhere.

“There are a lot of miners eager to come to Norway, including Bitmain and other Chinese companies,” said Mark Collins, CEO of Zurich-based clean energy consultancy CBH Consulting AG.

Bitmain spokesman Nishant Sharma said the company will announce expansion plans in Europe and other regions. He said he was not aware of any "special plans" for Sweden and Norway. (Compiled by Lutian)