So grids like ERCOT are open or 'unregulated', meaning the spot price ($/MW) is the driving factor. This means the miners likely have break-even computations running for each miner type at the current BTC price and can adjust them on the fly.
A good scaling miner will be shutting off their most inefficient units first leaving the lowest J/TH for last. But when spot price spikes up they are "selling back" the electricity they pre-purchased, meaning they are not using it. IREN is so good at this that their price per bitcoin at one point was -$28k/BTC (yes, paid $28k for each Bitcoin mined).
This works on the reverse side, as price per MW drops to below $0, if they have a massive amount of miners, even inefficient ones, those can ramp up to absorb that negative priced power to mine.
Amazing grid balancing! I'd love to see it in action first hand.
GreginLapwai / Greg
npub1ms…94t4y
2024-03-05 06:04:51
in reply to nevent1q…tq0g
Author Public Key
npub1ms3qnse3qzgcrm3v5dy65u7hydhljaa6vvcd40n4f68jdwsh4mash94t4yPublished at
2024-03-05 06:04:51Event JSON
{
"id": "e4044034890c0c730e2fb1a9592b558433a3193b44f1abc71c8c2055a59e2a7e",
"pubkey": "dc2209c331009181ee2ca349aa73d7236ff977ba6330dabe754e8f26ba17aefb",
"created_at": 1709615091,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"e",
"a42a242c1ed0aa1dc352b63b9536f95dd2029f0f84bb93372d6ea5491a866c08",
"",
"root"
],
[
"e",
"f6425fdce9616a5090b33b8c104b40762a602c24f74ffcb143974cb269124a37"
],
[
"e",
"ae429808d49afe4b4826a0449110900d32c28618b9b0b78db1ca38b03ac0aea6",
"",
"reply"
],
[
"p",
"c2622c916d9b90e10a81b2ba67b19bdfc5d6be26c25756d1f990d3785ce1361b"
],
[
"p",
"03612b0ebae0ec8d30031c440ba087ff9bd162962dffba4b6e021ec4afd71216"
]
],
"content": "So grids like ERCOT are open or 'unregulated', meaning the spot price ($/MW) is the driving factor. This means the miners likely have break-even computations running for each miner type at the current BTC price and can adjust them on the fly.\n\nA good scaling miner will be shutting off their most inefficient units first leaving the lowest J/TH for last. But when spot price spikes up they are \"selling back\" the electricity they pre-purchased, meaning they are not using it. IREN is so good at this that their price per bitcoin at one point was -$28k/BTC (yes, paid $28k for each Bitcoin mined).\n\nThis works on the reverse side, as price per MW drops to below $0, if they have a massive amount of miners, even inefficient ones, those can ramp up to absorb that negative priced power to mine.\n\nAmazing grid balancing! I'd love to see it in action first hand.",
"sig": "7873b8210e5a7c3950bafb725ce96e2b06e71d4cf44a713d0f7552c4d0d31f7dca511e8da98190bece99f9cf2e822f746c39beec63f6a51b1e39d1e84a38b212"
}