BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 10
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
Some 2 percent of the electricity over the country was consumed by Georgian companies engaged in cryptocurrency mining in 2020, said Minister of Economy Natia Turnava, Trend reports via Georgian media.
She made the remark at the parliamentary hearing.
As she noted, the electricity volume consumed by mining companies was down in the previous year comparing to 2019.
According to the Georgian Electricity Market Operator (ESCO), Bitfury bought the largest volume of electricity for mining in 2020. The data center consumed electricity of 132 million kWh.
Official figures show that other big data centers, including BlockPower, ITLabs, and GeoMaintenance have not actually purchased electricity from the direct market. However, the total consumption of data centers registered as direct consumers amounted to 132 million kWh, which was 1.08 percent of the total electricity consumption in 2020.
In addition, small companies are also involved in the mining and they are not registered as direct consumers of the electricity market. Those companies consumed electricity of 100 million kWh last year.
However, mining companies bought electricity of 785.5 million kWh in 2019 and total consumption amounted to 6.15 percent of Georgian electricity consumption.
In 2019, Bitfury purchased electricity of 534.2 million kWh, BlockPower – 122 million kWh, ITLab – 73.5 million kWh, and GeoMaintenance – 55.8 mgwt.
According to the Georgian National Energy and Water Supply Regulatory Commission (GNERC), due to the lack of meters and increased mining, "Energo Pro Georgia" suffers a loss of 13-14 million lari ($3.9 million-$4.2 million) per year.
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