National Iceland electrical company Landsvirkjun has cut the amount of power that it will provide for some industries, including aluminium smelters and Bitcoin miners.
A representative from the island’s power utility reported that it has been forced to reduce energy provisions to southwestern Bitcoin miners and various industrial facilities due to a series of issues including a problem at a power station along with low hydro-reservoir levels and accessing energy from an external supplier.
Mining operations have long been attracted due to its abundance of geothermal energy which is harvested to create a cheap and plentiful supply of renewable energy. But for an unknown time frame, any new requests for electricity from mining operations will be rejected, as per Landsvirkjun.
Canada’s Hive Blockchain Technologies, Genesis Mining, and Bitfury Holding are the three main Bitcoin mining companies that have opened facilities in Iceland.
For nearly a decade, miners have tried to realize the promise of environmentally-friendly Bitcoin mining in Iceland. In 2013, Cloud Hashing moved 100 miners to Iceland. In November of 2017, Austrian company HydroMiner GmbH raised about $2.8 million in its initial coin offering (ICO) to install mining rigs directly at Icelandic power plants.
