Mechanicville hydro plant began to use the surplus electricity to mine Bitcoin

In 1897, people built a hydro plant in Mechanicville, Saratoga County, New York, USA. The hydro plant was interrupted during the period and reopened at the end of the last century.

Now the hydro plant is preparing to use the surplus electricity for mining. What is interesting is that the hydropower station is going to buy Bitcoin mining machines on its own instead of selling the electricity to miners.

The Albany Engineering Company, which owns the hydro plant, said that the mining business is only an experiment, mainly for mining to obtain higher rewards.

National Grid was preparing to close the Mechanicville Hydropower Station in 1980 when the Albany Engineering Company agreed to operate the hydropower station on a 40-year lease.

“Bitcoin, bitcoin coin, physical bitcoin, bitcoin photo” by antanacoins is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

The premise is that the National Grid needs to purchase the electricity generated by the hydro plant, and then it will take the Albany Engineering Company seven years to obtain all the permits.

As a result, the next day, National Grid told the company that it was not prepared to perform the contract to purchase the electricity.

In an interview, the CEO of Albany Engineering Company stated that the National Grid did indeed do so, and directly breached the contract and was no longer willing to purchase hydroelectric power.

Then came the lengthy court litigation stage. After ten years, the two parties reached a settlement and the National Grid agreed to repurchase the electricity from the hydro plant.

However, the Mechanicville Hydropower Station was severely damaged by fire and flood for a long time unattended, and the National Grid had to pay all maintenance costs.

In the end, National Grid completely gave up the ownership of the hydropower station and completely transferred its ownership to the Albany Engineering Company after paying huge maintenance costs.

So now, how Albany Engineering Company uses this power is entirely up to itself, even if it is going to be used for mining the National Grid, it has no right to interfere.

At present, this hydropower station is still using the original equipment 124 years ago to generate electricity, and the main electricity generated is sold to the national grid to supply power to residents.

Albany Engineering Company stated that it will sell electricity to the National Grid for 3 cents per kilowatt-hour, but if it is used for mining, the income may reach 9 cents.

For this reason, the company has begun to use surplus electricity to mine Bitcoin this year. The company is purchasing second-hand Bitcoin mining machines and placing them around the power station.

Jim Besha, CEO of Albany Engineering, stated that they are not believers in Bitcoin, so the unearthed Bitcoins are sold every week.

And they are more willing to sell clean energy to those who really need it than for high-energy mining, but it is not cheap to operate an old hydro plant.

Therefore, the main electricity is sold to the National Grid of the United States for resale to enterprises and residents, and the surplus electricity is not wasted as much as it can be used for mining so that at least some more money can be made.

Via: timesunion