Kazakhstan’s energy ministry estimates electricity consumption by mining centres

For the first nine months of 2021, electricity consumption in Kazakhstan reached 82.99 billion kWh. The local Ministry of Energy attributed this to the operation of mining data centres within the country, according to LS.

According to the agency, around 50 data centres are dedicated to cryptocurrency mining. Their load stands at 693.3 MW, and the total permitted capacity under technical conditions is 972.3 MW.

Data centres consume 5 MWh, and one such facility accounts for 3.6 million kWh per month—roughly the consumption of about 24,000 apartments, according to the Ministry of Energy.

Kazakhstan is also recording growth in “shadow” mining:

“The supra-normative growth in consumption that can be attributed to mining data centres amounts to 1,050 MW. The shadow share can be estimated at 250–450 MW,” noted the Ministry of Energy.

According to the ministry, ensuring a sufficient supply of electricity for mining farms would require the construction of additional power sources of at least 1,000 MW.

In early October, the Ministry of Energy presented a draft decree limiting the electricity consumption of a single mining farm to 1 MW, and the total capacity of farms in the country to 100 MW.

According to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Kazakhstan has become one of the leaders in the Bitcoin network’s computing power.

This jurisdiction has attracted attention from many miners following the Chinese authorities’ tougher stance on the crypto industry.

However, in June, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a law providing for the introduction of an additional charge for mining.

In September, the country’s energy minister, Magzum Mirzagaliyev, proposed to limit the electricity consumption of mining data centres in the event of electricity shortages that could arise in Kazakhstan, while lawmakers called for creating a registry of farms and to raise electricity tariffs for cryptocurrency mining.

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