The largest energy operator in Kenya had announced that they’ll provide excess energy to Bitcoin mining companies for crypto mining in the country. Now, the company has shared some plans involving the development of an energy park as well as mining farms.
KenGen, the largest energy supplier in Kenya is looking at setting up multiple mining farms in an energy park. The company will establish those at its main geothermal power plant in Olkaria. According to the Cambridge-based Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI), Kenya can utilize about 10,000 megawatts of energy in Bitcoin Mining operations.
A major advantage that Kenya has over other countries is that most of the energy generated is from renewable sources. In fact, Geothermal power plants contribute over 86% of the total energy. Other than that, hydro and wind power plants also contribute to the national energy supply. With this, KenGen could grow the environmental sustainability of crypto mining.
As of now, the global crypto mining industry consumes about 119.5 Terrawatt hours (TWh) per year. To keep things in perspective, this is more than the entire consumption of the Netherlands, a pretty significant fact.
The government of Kenya can also benefit from this as they can impose taxes on companies that mine crypto. In fact, Kazakhstan, which had seen a huge inflow of miners from China, is expected to earn about $1.5 billion in taxes from miners over the next five years.
Coming back to Kenya, the current government had issued a document where they talked about their plans of issuing a CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency).
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