Tesla, Block, and Blockstream Joins Forces to Mine BTC Through Renewable Energy

The trio of the electric vehicle manufacturer, Tesla, fintech firm, Block (formerly Square Inc), and Adam Back’s Blockstream, a company that raised $16 million for its Bitcoin mining project last year have joined forces to mine Bitcoin (BTC) using power derived from renewable energy. As reported by CNBC, the project is a pilot phase that will only include a solar-powered farm with equipment and storage supplied by Tesla Inc.

The Bitcoin mining project will be powered by Tesla’s 3.8 megawatts solar PV array and a 12 megawatt-hour Megapack will power the facility. Speaking at the Bitcoin Conference in Miami, Adam Back said this project will be succeeded by the inclusion of other energy sources including wind in a bid to scale up.

“This is a step to proving our thesis that bitcoin mining can fund zero-emission power infrastructure and build economic growth for the future,” Back said.

While being tagged as a Proof-of-Concept, the collaborating partners will create a dashboard that can easily be followed by anyone who needed proof of authenticity that BTC can indeed be mined using excess energy from renewable energy sources.

“People like to debate about the different factors to do with bitcoin mining. We figured, let’s just prove it. Have an open dashboard so people can play along, maybe it can inform other players to participate,” Back said.

Tesla, Block and Blockstream to Leverage Renewable Energy’s Good Economics

This pilot phase will be located in West Texas, a region known for its massive production of renewable energy at scale. The region through its excess wind and sunlight produces about 34 gigawatts of power of which only a fraction gets to be distributed for use. 

The collaboration will further showcase how the good economics of the renewable energy industry can be harnessed and used to generate good value.

“By collaborating on this full-stack, 100% solar-powered bitcoin mining project with Blockstream, using solar and storage technology from Tesla, we aim to further accelerate bitcoin’s synergy with renewables,” said Neil Jorgensen, global ESG lead at Block and project lead for Block’s Bitcoin Clean Energy Initiative.

The future integration of Wind will help to counterbalance the operations of the mining farm at night or during periods of low ultraviolet activities from the sun. The switch to a renewable energy-based future has been favored by a lot of industry veterans including Peter Thiel, and as such, the new Tesla-Block-Blockstream partnership is billed to see enough support across the board.