If you happen to be in Finland or close by later this month ...

25-26 Sept
https://btchel.com/

Adoption stalls when orangepilling fails
And our orangepilling has been failing a lot of late

But it doesn't have to.

This is one of the models I take the Bitcoiners I coach through, which has been working. So I thought I'd open source it.

If you don't have Bitcoin mining on your grid, you're likely paying more for electricity than you should be.

Bitcoin mining recently dropped the price of power on one grid in Kenya by 28% to those who could least afford to be paying that premium.

In Norway, it dropped the price of energy 20%

Rural electrification and youth unemployment are the 2 biggest political issues in Africa.

Bitcoin mining solves the first one.

Probably nothing

"Numbers from Ethiopia Electric Power show the country raked in over $55 million from electricity sales for Bitcoin mining in 2024 alone,18% of their total revenue.

That money is being poured into strategic infrastructure, expanding transmission lines and distribution networks, helping close Ethiopia's rural electrification gap"

~ Business Insider, Nov 2025

How Bitcoin mining reduces power prices for residents, often substantially.

The best qualified to comment on this is the grid operator themselves, because they are independents, who see the impact of Bitcoin mining on grids firsthand.

Brad Jones, Former CEO of Texas’ grid ERCOT stated in 2022 that Bitcoin was “helping keep the cost of electricity low for all Texans”.

He then went further to state the 2 ways it does this

1. "Bitcoin ... by participating in [ancilliary] services in a competitive market necessarily drives those costs down for all consumers"

(Bitcoin mining creates a more competitive market for demand response, saving costs )
- Brad Jones, 2023. Interim CEO ERCOT (Grid of Texas)

2. Monetizing wind and solar energy that would otherwise have been wasted. As Jones put it, Bitcoin mining helped "find a home for otherwise wasted wind energy."

Because of that, those wind and solar operators were more profitable, decreasing overall price pressure

This is the 4th post in a series on how Bitcoin lowers power prices. Check out Mon-Wed posts for the other 3

"Bitcoin ... by participating in [ancilliary] services in a competitive market necessarily drives those costs down for all consumers"

- Brad Jones, 2023. Interim CEO ERCOT (Grid of Texas)

On the value of Bitcoin mining to the grid operator

"They have the flexibility to turn off their total consumption on a moment's notice that value means that unlike any other industry, even another data center, ... it does what we have been looking for at ERCOT for years and years. It creates a dynamic load meaning that we don't have to have another generator."

~ Brad Jones, 2023. Interim CEO ERCOT (Grid of Texas)

Little known fact: Bitcoin mining saved Texans a 4.3% powerbill increase - an increase that they'd have been paying for 40 years.

How?

After Texas' Winter Storm Uri, a number of options were investigated to help stabilize the grid and generation assets. Gas peaker plants, weatherization of generation assets (making gas plants resilient against freezing) and flexible load (Bitcoin mining) were all evaluated.

The cost of gas peaker plants was initially estimated at $8Billion, which then rose to $10.3Billion (estimated to cost up to $4/residential power bill for 40 years. Source: https://www.texastribune.org/2023/04/13/texas-power-natural-gas-cost-senate-bill-6/#:~:text=A%20Legislative%20Budget%20Board%20review%20of%20the,cost%20with%20funds%20from%20the%20budget%20surplus

But then the estimate rose again to $18Billion (up to $7 per resident for 40 years). With the average Texan power bill in 2024 being $163.72, that's an increase of ~4.3%

But what happened instead is that Brad Jones, ERCOT interim CEO at the time went public in 2022 saying that weatherization plus Bitcoin mining was sufficient to solve the problem (no burden to residents).
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKnRfDeFgr0

By May 2023, the House killed the bill to allow the gas peaker plant purchase procedurally https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/politics/clean-energy-dodges-a-bullet-in-the-texas-legislature

The Digital Assets Research Institute analysis said that such a move would have been impossible, without Bitcoin mining offering a demand side alternative to the costly gas peaker plant solution.
https://www.da-ri.org/articles/how-bitcoin-mining-saved-texans-18-billion

4.3% may seem like a small figure, but in many parts of the world including the West where particular in UK where more than 1Million senior citizens are now regularly choosing to skip meals to afford home heating costs, a 4.3% increase is material and significant. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/dec/07/winter-fuel-crisis-one-million-elderly-already-skipping-meals-and-applications-system-overwhelmed

Also, 4.3% is a lower threshold that does not factor in the additional price-lowering benefits of monetizing otherwise wasted renewable energy (estimated to lower electricity bills by 28% in Kenya. Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/20/bitcoin-miner-gridless-backed-by-block-builds-site-at-kenya-volcano.html) and ~20% in Norway. Source: https://www.nrk.no/nordland/datasenter-la-ned-driften-_-na-far-innbyggerne-sjokkregning-1.17042643)

"Demand from bitcoin miners on these semi-stranded assets is making renewables in Africa economically viable." ~ CNBC

Yesterday, I posted on Bitcoin mining lowering power prices for a community in Norway by 20%.

But does Bitcoin mining also help lower electricity prices for consumers in the Global South?

It would appear, the answer is again "yes".

Bitcoin mining company Gridless has already done this in Kenya, Malawi and Zambia. According to CNBC, as a direct result of Bitcoin mining using the otherwise wasted energy from a micro-hydro plant in Kenya:

"the hydro plant dropped the price of power from 35 cents per kilowatt hour to 25 cents per kWh."

That's a 28% price drop.

Even lower than the 20% price drop in Norway.

The price drop isn't always this low. Sometimes its only around 4% (more on that tomorrow). But even that can be significant for struggling families.

And, the story is consistent, across grids and across the world: if you have Bitcoin mining using otherwise wasted renewable electricity, the direct result is that consumers of energy will pay less for their power.