Because bitcoin mining operations require more electricity than any other consumer, the county Public Utility District (PUD) commissioners this week approved a bill to impose increased electricity rates on bitcoin miners in Chelan County, Washington.
As per report By 560 KPQ on June 8, the approved bill includes an approximately 29% increase in electricity tariffs. This move has actually moved miners from the usual “high density” loading plan to a newly created plan known as Rate 36, especially for cryptocurrency miners.
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Garry Arseneault, a Chelan County PUD officer, added:
What we have done as a Commission and as a utility has been industry-leading to create a new tariff for this type of demand.
The change in tariffs for miners’ companies is technically fair as they use large amounts of electrical energy and therefore pay higher tariffs.
Additionally, due to the fact that miners require massive electricity for their operations, Douglas County has banned such new firms from settling in the county. Existing companies already use around 25% of the available electricity.
The new tariffs were supposed to go into effect in January this year, but officials later pushed the date back to June. However, since the vote took place on Monday and the Commission had approved the draft law, new prices were already being received from June 1st.
Bitcoin price is currently trading above $30,000. | Source: BTC/USD price chart by TradingView.com
Bitcoin Mining Firms Closing?
Rising electricity prices would in no way set back miners. For those new companies that are currently unable to bear the additional charges of the new schedule because they have already made significant investments in providing mining facilities, the Commission has offered three audited mining platforms to sign transition agreements. It would gradually increase prices instead of enforcing high rates all at once.
PUD Commissioner Ann Congdon, added on Tuesday:
We need some kind of transition. This is important for business. I understand how companies need this to plan.
Despite the commission’s bridging of transitional agreements, criticism from the mining community has nevertheless been heard.
Salcido Enterprises CEO Malachi Salcido told a local news outlet, Wenatchee World, that he had to reconfigure his three mining platforms into data farms due to rising electricity prices in Chelan County. Also, in addition to these two platforms that he intends to cross, he has four other mining facilities, two of which are in Douglas County and the other two are in Grant County.
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Under the new rules, if Salcido transitions its Chelan-based companies into data farms and processes data instead of mining it, the platforms will pay lower fees under the “high-density” schedule. Before the new bill was approved, crypto firms paid on this schedule.
Salcido further told the news outlet that data processing requires the same level of power that miners require.
He added:
Do you really want to regulate what kind of processing takes place on servers in your territory?
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