Gridless Compute, a hydropowered Bitcoin mining initiative, tweeted that the project successfully boosted a rural community and lowered their existing energy rates.
An Africa-based hydropower-powered cryptocurrency mining project posted an update on its efforts to bring energy development to rural communities through Bitcoin.
On Dec. 9, Gridless Compute tweeted photos and comments about how its hydropowered BTC mining rigs are powering an entire rural settlement while lowering energy rates for 2,000 people, the equivalent of 500 families. According to the tweet, costs drop from $10 a month to $4.
How It Works
The model is from Gridless Computing, a Kenya-based green energy initiative. The company is primarily focused on providing cheap, uninterrupted power to rural Kenya.
Due to the lack of adequate infrastructure, it can be up to four times more expensive to pay for electricity in a small Kenyan town than in a large city. In addition to being expensive, this power is often interrupted.
Gridless buys mini-grid hydropower generators in rural areas that local families use to extract power, and uses excess capacity from the grids to mine BTC.
BTC Mining for Energy, Not Energy for BTC Mining
Gridless’s impressive work swayed investors to participate, even during the bear market. On December 6, No Network secured $2 million in a seed investment round that Stillmark and Block led.
Gridless CEO Erik Hersman pointed out that “Africa needs affordable electricity. Our work supporting renewable energy mini-grid developers fills a gap, helping developers scale faster, become more sustainable, and serve thousands of homes.”
Figures for 2020 show that more than 50% of people in Africa do not have access to electricity. But, simple access to uninterruptible power is not enough to solve the problem of energy use in the region either. Hersman describes the problem by stating that “It takes a few years for households to switch from getting electricity to buying more energy-hungry refrigerators, TVs, and other appliances.”
He further adds that “scaling up is not fast, which means you need another buyer of that power in the interim, or the costs to generate that power will be too high for that community to pay for as well, slowing down adoption. Even more.”
Gridless believes that it can use the power of BTC mining to bring access to electricity to all African citizens and help increase usage.
Notably, crypto activity on the African continent has been gaining momentum over the past year as use cases for cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency technology continue to emerge.
In fact, the International Monetary Fund has recently called for stricter regulation of cryptocurrencies in Africa.
Additionally, new partnerships have made cross-border payments possible between US citizens, sending funds to Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya via the BTC Lightning Network.
By Audy Castaneda
