Swedish miners to be supplied with electricity on a residual basis

Energy Minister Khashayar Farmanbar said the country needed the resource “for more useful things than bitcoin”

18.07.2022 - 16:00

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2 min

What’s new? Swedish Energy Minister Hashayar Farmanbar said that the country was faced with the choice of allocating more electricity to businesses that provide jobs or increasing the capacity of mining companies. He stressed that Sweden needs the resource “for more useful things than bitcoin.” The government is concerned about the increased consumption of electricity, so it has asked the relevant agency to create ways to track the energy used for digital infrastructure.

Information on Bloomberg's website

What does the energy minister say? According to Farmanbar, the issue with electricity distribution is not controversial. Preference will be given to those organizations that benefit the community, especially the provision of jobs. He added:

“We are moving from a period of administration to an extreme expansion where our entire manufacturing industry is seeking to electrify.”

According to the European Central Bank, bitcoin mining consumes as much electricity as an average-sized country like Spain or the Netherlands. The scale of the sector in Sweden is difficult to estimate because there is no public data on the number of miners and the electricity they consume. As of January 2022, Sweden's share of the global BTC hashrate was 0,84%, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI).

In June, Sweden's central bank called for a ban on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies using the Proof of Work (PoW) consensus algorithm because of their negative impact on the environment. The regulator published the report “Cryptocurrencies and their impact on financial stability,” according to which the share of mining in the country reached the level of energy consumption of 200 000 households.

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