British Columbia to impose moratorium on Bitcoin miners’ connections

The province’s Crown corporation BC Hydro will приостановит acceptance of applications to connect new Bitcoin mining facilities and other digital-asset operations for 18 months.

The company that supplies more than 95% of the region’s electricity will also halt connections for mining data centres that are at an early stage of deployment.

“Mining cryptocurrencies consumes a vast amount of electricity around the clock to run and cool powerful computers, creating very few jobs in the local economy,” said Energy Minister Josie Osborne.

She said authorities intend to preserve electricity for businesses and sectors that “reduce carbon emissions, create jobs and economic opportunities”.

According to the press release, BC Hydro serves seven mining centres. Connections to the grid for six more are in the late stages of the process. The combined capacity of these facilities amounts to 273 MW.

For example, the province hosts facilities of one of Canada’s largest miners Hut 8 and the American company Iris Energy.

BC Hydro has received applications from 21 crypto mining operators. Collectively they are seeking 1,403 MW of capacity. This is equivalent to the annual needs of about 570,000 households or 2.1 million electric vehicles.

The company will temporarily halt connections of new data centres; existing operations in the industry will not be affected.

Over the next eighteen months, authorities plan to develop and adopt permanent rules for providing energy services to miners in the region.

The BC government cited the experiences of Manitoba and Quebec. In the latter, Hydro-Québec has introduced a new data-centre servicing framework for cryptocurrency mining, which provides for higher tariffs and consumption limits, officials stressed.

In October 2021, North Vancouver authorities announced a project to heat 100 buildings using Bitcoin mining.

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