Wind farming is set to contribute 900-megawatt to Morocco’s energy grid.
Soluna, a blockchain company plans on building a 900MW wind farm in order to power a computing center in Dakhla, said John Belizaire, Soluna chief executive. Work on the initial off-grid phase is set to begin in 2019 and is slated to be completed by 2020 with the possibility of connecting the site to the national grid.
According to Soluna, the wind farming project at an estimated cost of 1.4 to 2.5 billion dollars, will see an initial investment of 100 million for the first phase from, which it hopes to generate 36 megawatts.
The mining of bitcoins by computers requires huge processing power which in turn requires loads of electricity. This is why bit coining mining operations are typically carried out in large hangar-sized warehouses in the cooler climates of northern China, Iceland, Russia and Canada, where it costs significantly less to disperse heat. According to cryptocurrency analysis platform Digiconomist, bitcoin mining operations consume nearly 71 terawatt hours (TWh) per year – roughly 10% of China’s total annual energy consumption.
For its wind farming in Morocco, Soluna which has the backing of private equity group Brookstone, will most likely see the help of large institutional investors and private equity firms, said Belizaire.
Covering an area of 37,000 acres, Soluna will be building the project in what is said to be one of the world’s windiest regions. This will enable it to generate electricity through sustainable resources while building a utility-scale blockchain computing facility.
Belizaire has made it lucidly clear that Soluna will not make any cryptocurrency transactions in Morocco since authorities there have warned against its usage. Instead, the computing center will provide computing power to blockchain networks offering calculation capacities to foreign entities in exchange for foreign currency.
