The director of Kenya’s largest power provider, Peketsa Mwangi, said in an interview that they will offer geothermal energy to bitcoin miners, which will help reduce carbon emissions related to Bitcoin mining.
According to a Quartz Africa story, KenGen (Kenya Electricity Generating Company PLC), Kenya’s largest electricity supplier, intends to provide excess geothermal power to bitcoin mining companies.
In an interview, KenGen’s geothermal development director, Peketsa Mwangi, said, “We have the space and the power is near, which helps with stability.”
Kenya is Africa’s largest geothermal energy producer, providing over 14,000 megawatts (MW) of power with only 863 MW of equipment. An estimated 10,000 MW of geothermal energy is essentially dormant throughout the Rift Valley circuit alone.
Miners interested in taking advantage of this offer have already contacted KenGen to learn more about it, and “some have requested to start with 20 MW and upscale later,” according to Mwangi.
Because there are currently no bitcoin mining companies in Africa, those interested in the offering are expected to be primarily from the United States or Europe.
Currently, renewable energy sources like as hydro and wind, as well as geothermal, generate over 80% of KenGen’s produced power. KenGen, on the other hand, keeps its excess power capacity hidden.
According to the article KenGen claims that through providing clean energy, the company expects to help reduce the carbon emissions related with bitcoin mining. Kenya’s government, on the other hand, has adopted a very different approach to bitcoin and digital currency due to its fear of market scams.
Kenya’s central bank had previously produced a document ( pdf below) outlining its desire to research a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The central bank did warn, however, that the success of M-Pesa, a mobile banking service, could jeopardise Kenya’s recent innovation experience if a CBDC is established without sufficient reason.
“The usefulness of technology does not lie in its uniqueness but in its ability to solve a pressing societal problem. A case in point has been the rise of mobile money in Kenya that has placed our country as a cradle of innovation in Africa.”
Read the document below:
CentralBankDigitalCurrency