A subsidiary of Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) is now experimenting with mining bitcoins via excess renewable energy. Agile Energy X, a firm wholly owned by the 1.09-trillion-yen market cap behemoth, hopes the move will incentivize the adoption of “green” energy.
President of Agile Energy X, Kenji Tateiwa, notes that “What we are doing has few parallels in Japan,” according to an article published by the Asahi Shimbun Sunday (JST). The topic of “output control” for power suppliers gained currency in 2018 with Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s move to regulate the output of some of the country’s controversial photovoltaic (solar) power sources.
This regulation is said to be important for mitigating system overload and blackouts.
TEPCO firm hops on green bandwagon via BTC
As more and more companies race to meet the demands of political pressure to implement so-called sustainable power systems, Tateiwa notes that bitcoin could actually incentivize corporations to do so. Due to the nature of solar power’s tendency to peak during daytime hours, the excess energy would need to be dealt with. Firms investing in such green energy want to make a profit, and that’s where the BTC network enters the picture.
Agile Energy X claims it will “create demand through distributed computing,” and facilitate “the ability to make adjustments through a market mechanism for alleviating congestion that the Japanese government has recently discussed establishing.”
Founded in 2022, Tateiwa’s project could be picking up speed in 2024 in view of a growing positive sentiment surrounding state-regulated crypto in Japan. The government’s ever-solidifying policies on crypto were praised last week by Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse.
Tateiwa sees profitability amid opposition to solar farms in Japan
The report notes that mining machines have been set up in Japan’s mountainous Gunma prefecture, as well as in Tochigi, and that there is a location next to a solar farm.
However, with the relatively meager amount of Japanese power currently subject to output controls, the supply of surplus energy is still too low to be massively profitable. Output restrictions on power are now implemented by multiple regional utilities in the country, but not TEPCO.
Tateiwa says that “Green energy producers have to operate their businesses on the assumption that part of the power they generate is wasted,” noting that this might encourage firms to enter the green power game if bitcoin can make the wasted power lucrative.
Still, critics of photovoltaic power farms in Japan have cited the destruction of mountain and forest environments, and toxic waste from discarded panels in landfills, as reasons to rethink hasty implementations of such energy.
