Bitcoin
Bitcoin Mining Marathon (MARA) in talks with Kenya to help its green energy ambitions
Marathon Digital (MARA), one of the largest bitcoin mining companies, has held talks with Kenya to help manage the country’s renewable energy through mining and develop its crypto regime.
“We have been working closely with the Kenyan government on how to optimize and monetize renewable energy assets,” Jayson Browder, vice president of government affairs at MARA, told CoinDesk in an interview. Kenyan President William Ruto recently met with the Marathon team during an American Chamber of Commerce event held in Kenya.
Kenya’s main source of renewable energy is geothermal energy from the Earth’s crust, as well as wind and solar. Although geothermal energy is constant and not affected by seasonality, other renewable energy can pose a problem for Kenya’s energy supply.
Enter Marathon, which believes its technology can help solve this energy management problem in Kenya.
One of the main obstacles to renewable energy is that electricity is only produced when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, causing consistency and storage issues for the user. To make the most efficient use of these forms of energy, the energy needs to be stored or wasted, creating the need for an energy management system to balance the grid.
Companies like Marathon can configure their bitcoin mining operations to function as an energy management system, consuming excess energy generated from these renewable sources. Miners can also shut down their operations to reduce usage so other customers can continue to get power without interruption, which helps balance the grid.
Because bitcoin mining operations can be very mobile, companies can create locations wherever they are needed to help balance the power grid.
“The technology is modular, we can put them anywhere, and if they are an intermittent source like wind or solar, we can turn our machines off when the grid needs it, so we can balance the grid. “Browder said.
The company also started a similar project in Paraguay last year, involving a bitcoin mining project using 100% renewable energy. The project meant that MARA could co-locate mining sites next to energy sources that produced excess energy and monetize them.
“So the technology we use can help monetize and optimize some of these energy assets,” Browder said.
The Kenyan government did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment on the story.
The conversation between Marathon and Kenya may have started with renewable energy solutions, but it ended with the country’s president asking the company’s opinion on a crypto regime, according to Bowder.
Nations around the world are trying to build their crypto regimes. Western countries like Europe and the United Kingdom have rolled out new laws to help regulate this nascent technology, while African nations like South Africa have recently begun licensing crypto companies.
“The Kenyan government wants to be a leader in the technology and innovation space. Invest internally and bring leading companies to support this growth,” Browder said in a statement. “This includes building the right regulatory framework around digital assets to include potential development of a cryptocurrency exchange (government or private sector).”
The purpose of the regulatory framework and cryptocurrency exchange would be to allow the Kenyan government to regulate both the trade and sale of crypto assets within its borders.
“We are excited to support the Kenyan government’s vision for the future,” said Browder.