Iceland will restrict access to electricity for new mining companies

The national Icelandic electricity company Landsvirkyun announced the suspension of connections of new miners to energy sources for an indefinite period.

According to Bloomberg, citing a statement from Landsvirkjun Vice President Tinna Traustadottir, this decision is caused by a number of problems with the supply of electricity.

Several factors coincide, she said, such as low water levels in hydroelectric reservoirs in southwestern Iceland, delays in the supply of energy from an external supplier and a malfunction at one of the power plants. The increased demand for energy also affected.

At the same time, it is not planned to turn off already working miners. In addition to denying new miners a connection, the energy company will reduce the supply of energy to industrial enterprises – metallurgical companies and other large energy consumers.

Iceland has always been attractive to miners due to its significant generation of energy from geothermal sources. Large mining companies Hive Blockchain, Genesis Mining and Bitfury operate in the country. However, the current situation has shown that the national power system is not ready for such a range of electricity generation challenges.

This is also due to the fact that Landsvirkyun cannot quickly increase energy generation – in Iceland more than 99% of electricity is taken from renewable sources, and it takes a long time to launch geothermal generators or hydroelectric power plants.

Note that mining companies face restrictions in other countries as well. Thus, the influx of miners to Kazakhstan led to a shortage of electricity, so miners are trying to export part of the equipment to Russia and the United States. There are fears that the US state of Texas will face a shortage of electricity.