Largest Icelandic Utility Cuts Power To Crypto-Miners Amid Grid Crunch

This week, a power crisis has developed in Iceland, forcing the island’s largest utility company, Landsvirkjun, to reduce electricity to energy-intensive industries, such as data centers and metal smelters, including the denial of new power contracts to crypto miners.  

“The reduction does not only apply to fishmeal factories but also to those large users who have curtailable short-term contracts, such as data centers and smelters. Landsvirkjun has also rejected all requests from new customers for energy purchases due to electronic currency mining,” according to Iceland Monitor. 

All power on the island is generated through renewable sources, with 73% of electricity provided by hydropower plants and 26.8% from geothermal energy, accounting for over 99% of total electricity consumption. The source of the power crisis is low hydro reservoir levels. Another issue is an offline power station and a delay in obtaining additional power sources from a third party. 

Iceland’s problems appear to be very similar to what happened in Europe when wind generation collapsed, forcing the UK and other surrounding countries to transition to natural gas generation to make up for lost power, forcing fossil fuel prices higher on tight supplies. A similar instance occurred in China when Beijing forced utilities to limit power to energy-intensive industries. 

In the last several years, Iceland has been considered Bitcoin’s green energy haven because of cheap power from hydro and geothermal energy sources; but, interestingly (and certainly not in keeping with the globalist climate change narratives), an ecologist in El Salvador said geothermal still costs more than oil, according to Decrypt. 

As for Iceland, the local newspaper said the power crunch could be resolved by the end of the week. This is another example of how green energy power sources are unreliable and disruptive to the economy if electricity generation lapses.