Bitcoin mining has proven crucial for the stability of Texas’s power grid, offering a more efficient alternative to traditional backup power plants.

Gas peaker plants are natural-gas-fired electricity plants that are needed only during peak electricity demand, and remain idle for the majority of the time. These plants are the main way of dealing with the high intermittency of renewable energy generation like solar and wind, but come with high setup and mainentance costs. For some time now, industry insiders have seen that coupling renewable energy generation with Bitcoin mining has helped stabilize electricity grids – we now have the data to back this up and show how Bitcoin mining obviates the need for gas peaker plants.

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