$Bitcoin hashrate drops 8% as US miners curtail during Winter Storm Fern
As Winter Storm Fern wracked middle America over the weekend, bitcoin miners in the PJM and TVA regions curtailed operations to support the grid as the arctic front left more than 1 million customers without power.
Prior to the storm, PJM Interconnection issued precautionary alerts for its service area covering 13 states and the District of Columbia. The power authority said that the “formidable arctic cold front,” bringing with it single digit temperatures, had the potential to drive peak demand to exceed 130,000 MW for seven straight days – an unprecedented streak. To address the demand, the Department of Energy issued an order allowing PJM generators to run at maximum output, bypassing environmental limits through January 31. PJM called for a pre-emergency demand response in the BGE, Dominion, and Pepco areas on Sunday, and the operator called for conservative operations through February 1.
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) region was hit with the most power outages of any area, with approximately 253,000 customers in Tennessee lacking power at the time of publication. Nashville and Northern Mississippi bore the brunt of physical grid failures.
CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) CEO Matthew Schultz confirmed in a post Sunday that the bitcoin miner, which operates in East Tennessee, curtailed operations to “push power back to support critical needs.” Schultz noted the move demonstrates the value of interruptible loads to balance and protect the grid. #ScrollCoFounderXAccountHacked #Mag7Earnings #ETHWhaleMovements
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