Tesla, Blockstream and Jack Dorsey’s Block have partnered to build a solar-powered Bitcoin mining installation in West Texas. The facility will be powered by a 12 megawatt-hour Megapack battery and a 3.8 megawatt solar photovoltaic array supplied by Tesla.
At the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, Blockstream co-founder and CEO Adam Back — a member of the cypherpunk community and a British cryptographer — told CNBC that the new mining site is being designed to demonstrate the feasibility of mining Bitcoin using 100% renewable energy.
Back said:
“People like to debate many of the factors around Bitcoin mining. We decided to prove it. Have an open dashboard so people can engage and perhaps this can inform other participants to join.”
Notably, the team building the Bitcoin mining site will also create a public dashboard that allows anyone to follow real-time metrics on the project’s performance, including the number of bitcoins mined and overall system output. The dashboard is expected to display solar generation and battery storage performance as well.
Back added:
“This is a step toward proving our thesis that Bitcoin mining can finance zero-emission energy infrastructure and create economic growth for the future.”
Adoption of Renewable Energy in Crypto
Improving the economics of renewable energy in West Texas — currently a hub for renewables in the United States — requires maximizing the use of solar and wind power, and addressing the role of complementary technologies that support generation during non-sunny hours.
Much of the region’s solar and wind capacity is concentrated in remote areas, so more financial incentives and infrastructure investment are needed to capture and use that energy locally. Buyers of energy play a critical role in making renewable projects economically viable by providing reliable demand.
Bitcoin miners can serve as flexible, near-term buyers that keep energy assets operating while grid and storage capacity expand to wider adoption. The West Texas installation is designed to operate within a constrained regional framework of roughly 34 gigawatts of generation, 12 gigawatts of transmission and 5 gigawatts of local demand.
Back noted that an off-grid mining site will be completed later this year, enabling miners to operate remotely without reliance on local grid infrastructure. If the project proves profitable, the plan is to scale up by adding wind energy resources.
Back explained:
“You’re calculating an optimal economic mix between solar and battery. Here there’s 3.8 megawatts of solar and one megawatt of mining, so you see you must overbuild because peak solar input shifts during the day and, of course, at night it isn’t there.”
That approach reduces costs and minimizes solar downtime by aligning generation, storage and mining demand.
Blockstream said its primary goal is to strengthen the Bitcoin network by expanding and diversifying the sources of crypto energy, demonstrating how mining can support resilient, low-emission energy infrastructure while promoting local economic growth.