Last updated on May 31st, 2023 at 07:19 am
NB Power Crypto Mining – Fredericton the electric provider in New Brunswick put a stop to adding new services for cryptocurrency mining operations last year, citing concerns about its capacity to handle the rising demands from the energy-hungry industry.
A cabinet directive dated March 1, 2022, which approves the indefinite suspension and instructs Crown-owned NB Power to investigate the industry and present its conclusions by December 31, 2022, contains specifics concerning the moratorium.
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NB Power and Crypto Mining
The cabinet document, which was recently made public in a CBC article, shows that unnamed Bitcoin mining companies had sent NB Power many “large-scale, short-notice” service requests.
Hive Blockchain Technologies Ltd., a Vancouver-based company, said in February 2021 that it would pay $25 million in stock to purchase GPU Atlantic Inc., which at the time was running its own 50-megawatt substation and cryptocurrency mining data center in Grand Falls, New Brunswick.
According to Hive, it will deploy bitcoin mining equipment of the next generation that uses “some of the lowest electricity costs in the industry.”
Due to doubts about its capacity to satisfy the rising demand, NB Power said in early 2022 that it will temporarily halt all new large-scale, short-notice electricity requests and any new requests from Bitcoin miners.
The utility claimed that the requests were putting “significant pressure” on the province’s electrical supply, according to the cabinet order signed by Premier Blaine Higgs.
The cabinet responded by referencing the province’s Electricity Act, which mandates that the provincial government make sure NB Power is administered in a way that is “consistent with reliable, safe, and economically sustainable service.”
Requests for interviews with the New Brunswick administration and NB Power were not entertained. What the review discovered and the government’s or NB Power’s intentions for handling the cryptocurrency mining business are still unknown.
NB Power Customers Faces Outage
NB Power tweeted about the power outage that affected customers in the Woodstock area today, May 1, 2023. They also acknowledged that outages are affecting customers in other parts of the province and apologized for the inconvenience this causes.
They also said that their crews are still on the ground and working assiduously to safely and effectively restore power to those customers.
