These businesses were lured by the reduced power costs associated with mining new cryptocurrencies. Apart from that, Landsvirkjun has also reduced prices for a number of industrial clients, including aluminum smelters and data centres.
As per the corporation, the drop in supply was caused by low hydro reservoir levels, a power plant problem, and a delay in getting electricity from an external source. Even massive demand contributed to the power supply cut, according to Tinna Traustadottir, executive vice president of sales and customer service at Landsvirkjun.
For a long time, the nation drew a large number of cryptocurrency miners owing to its availability of geothermal energy. The miners collect this to provide an abundant supply of renewable energy at a low cost. Among the companies that have established operations in Iceland are Hive Blockchain Technologies Ltd. of Canada, Genesis Mining Ltd. of Hong Kong, and Bitfury Holding BV of the Netherlands.
According to Landsvirkjun, as of December 7, all requests for electricity from new customers mining cryptocurrencies were denied. Iceland’s geothermal energy resources, which can be utilized to provide a cheap supply of renewable energy, have long attracted crypto mining enterprises.
This is not the first time that Bitcoin mining operations have come under fire globally. Two of Sweden’s director generals have advocated prohibiting crypto mining in order to achieve the country’s climate commitments. Then, in September 2021, the Chinese government issued a blanket ban on all types of cryptocurrency trading. In 2021, the price of the world’s oldest and biggest cryptocurrency increased by around 80%. Bitcoin’s value hit an all-time high of more over $68,000 in November.