Cryptocurrency mining has seen exponential growth in Russia in the last few years. But, one local region is scuffling to keep power stability as new crypto mining operations are coming in waves to the country.
Russia’s Irkutsk Oblast, a federal region and Russia’s major center of trade routes from China, saw a massive increase in energy consumption in 2021 due to mining activities, local news agency TASS reported on Wednesday.
Yevgeny Vechkanov, head of technology and development at the local energy firm Irkutsk Electric Networks, argued that the increased activity of crypto mining and China’s crypto ban in September are the biggest factors.
“These factors exacerbated the situation, triggering energy use quadrupling compared to 2020,” he said.
Vechkanov also said that locals have been installing crypto mining farms at home, resulting in frequent power grid outages.
Oleg Prichko, director at Baikal Energy Company, linked the power consumption increase to the surge in popular local mining operations. He argued that as many as seven Boeing 737 aircrafts “fully loaded with mining devices from China” arrived in Irkutsk during the first two weeks of January.
The head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Andrey Zhbanov, said that some Irkutsk residents even set up mining farms in dog houses. “Laugh all you want, but it’s warm for the dogs. Mining causes a lot of heat, which creates double benefits,” he noted.
The Russian Energy Ministry previously announced that it was working on a new framework to differentiate tariffs between general usage and crypto mining in late 2021.
