Bitcoin is Key to an Abundant, Clean Energy Future
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Bitcoin is Key to
an Abundant, Clean
Energy Future
In this memo, we aim to explain how the Bitcoin network functions as a
unique energy buyer that could enable society to deploy substantially
more solar and wind generation capacity. This deployment, along with
energy storage, aims to facilitate the transition to a cleaner and more
resilient electricity grid. We believe that the energy asset owners of
today can become the essential bitcoin miners of tomorrow.
ABOUT THIS MEMO
Highlights
The Bitcoin Clean Energy Initiative has
developed this short research paper as a starting
Bitcoin mining presents an
point to share our vision for how bitcoin mining
opportunity to accelerate the
global energy transition to - in conjunction with renewable energy and
renewables by serving as a storage - is especially well suited to accelerate
complementary technology for clean the energy transition. To complement this work, Energy asset
owners are the
energy production and storage. ARK Invest has contributed an open source
entities which
model that demonstrates how bitcoin mining own the power
Solar and wind are now the least
expensive energy sources in the could augment these renewable + storage production
world, but are hitting deployment systems to supply a larger percentage of a grid’s plant once it is
bottlenecks primarily because of baseload energy demand for comparable or in commercial
operation.
their intermittent power supply and lower cost unit economics. This work is merely
grid congestion.
the beginning of what we hope will be a fruitful
Bitcoin Clean
Bitcoin miners as a flexible load exploration of solutions to help usher in an
Energy Initiative
option could potentially help solve abundant, clean energy future. (BCEI) is a
much of these intermittency and project launched
congestion problems, allowing A UNIQUE ENERGY BUYER by Square in
grids to deploy substantially more
Bitcoin miners are unique energy buyers December 2020 to
renewable energy. promote the use
in that they offer highly flexible and easily
of clean energy
By deploying more solar and wind, interruptible load, provide payout in a globally in Bitcoin mining.
these generation technologies will liquid cryptocurrency, and are completely Learn more about
likely fall even further down their location agnostic, requiring only an internet its origin here.
respective cost curves, bringing
connection. These combined qualities
them closer to zero marginal cost
energy production. constitute an extraordinary asset, an energy Interruptible load
buyer of last resort1 that can be turned on or off is an end use of
electricity, like
at a moment’s notice anywhere in the world.
mining bitcoin,
which can be
turned on or off
1. Special Report: Energy Backed Money, Satoshi Energy. quickly and easily.
Bitcoin Clean Energy Initiative Memorandum April 2021 01RENEWABLE ENERGY IS NOW THE CHEAPEST ENERGY NREL Duck Curve
The Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) for solar Net load in Megawatts, January 11
Years 2012-2020 represented
and wind has fallen 90% and 71%,1 respectively,
over the last decade. The unsubsidized costs 34k
of solar and wind energy are now 3-4 cents / 2020
kWh and 2-5 cents / kWh, respectively. Certain 30k
individual projects have had even lower costs.
For context, the average LCOE for fossil 26k
fuels such as coal or natural gas is ~5-7 cents
2012
/ kWh. This means that solar and wind are 22k
already at a lower price point than coal and
natural gas. Solar and wind energy also just 18k Levelized Cost
reached cost parity2 with both geothermal and 0 of Energy (LCOE)
12am 3am 6am 9am 12pm 3pm 6pm 9pm
hydroelectric, which at around 3-5 cents / kWh is the total
are inexpensive, but geographically limited. Ten Years of Analyzing the Duck Chart, NREL. lifetime cost of
building and
operating a power
There will always be inexpensive individual plant divided by
sites for different power sources like hydro or In essence, the sun shines during the day, but the total amount
geothermal, but on the whole, solar and wind not at night. Wind is more unpredictable, but of energy
are now the lowest cost and most scalable. tends to blow more heavily at night. Energy it produces
(measured in
What’s more, we believe they will only continue supply, therefore, is either abundant or non- cents / kWh).
to get more affordable over time. We believe existent. Demand, however, peaks around the
this is especially true for solar, a semiconductor late afternoon or early evening when people Semiconductor
technology, which has consistently declined in arrive home and turn on appliances, at which technology the
price by 20-40%3 per doubling of cumulative time neither solar nor wind are abundantly basis of modern
capacity deployed. available. The end result is significantly more electronics and
power than society typically needs for a few computing which
has historically
hours per day and not nearly enough when fallen in cost as
LCOE by Energy Source demand spikes. This same challenge also plays its production
In Price per kWh out seasonally as the sun shines more during capacity increases
the summer and the wind blows more during (e.g. see
Hydro ~.01 – .04 Nat. Gas ~.04 – .07 Moore’s Law).
the winter. These deficiencies are further
Wind ~.02 – .05 Geothermal ~.05 – .10
exacerbated by grid congestion,5 which is
Solar ~.03 – .04 Coal ~.06 – .07 similar to highway traffic and frequently occurs Intermittency is
when an energy
because solar and wind projects are often built
source is not
All but Hydro, Lazard. Hydropower, IRENA – in rural areas with lots of sunlight and wind constant. For
International Renewable Energy Agency. but little nearby load (i.e. end power users) example, in the
and transmission capacity. Because of these case of a solar
challenges, there are >200 GW6 of delayed solar farm, it only
produces when
TEMPORAL SUPPLY & DEMAND MISMATCH AND and wind capacity currently in just three U.S.
the sun shines.
GRID CONGESTION grid interconnection queues. These are solar
Solar and wind energy, however, both suffer from and wind projects which have developers and
Grid congestion
one major deficiency versus more expensive financing readily available, but which grids is when a grid’s
baseload power like natural gas or nuclear: physically cannot accommodate. transmission lines
intermittency. In the energy industry, this results have reached the
in what is known as the “duck curve.” 4 Increased transmission capacity and energy maximum capacity
for how much
storage will be critical to solving these
electricity can flow
problems, especially as Lithium Ion batteries through them at
1. Levelized Cost of Energy and Levelized Cost of
continue to fall down their cost curve. For the any given moment.
Storage – 2020, Lazard.
2. Levelized Costs of New Generation Resources in moment, though, utility-scale batteries are
the Annual Energy Outlook 2021, U.S. Energy still too expensive to deploy universally. After Transmission
Information Administration. they’ve fallen another 80% in cost, they will still capacity the rate
3. Solar's Future is Insanely Cheap (2020), Ramez Naam. face physical limitations around their useful at which electricity
4. Ten Years of Analyzing the Duck Chart, NREL. can be moved
lifespan and for how long they can store energy
5. Transmission congestion & constraints: Market from a power plant
impediment or opportunity? NRG Editorial Voices. without dissipation. They will, however, be the (e.g. a solar farm)
6. New data tool from Berkeley Lab Tracks Proposed most critical technology in storing inexpensive to a load center
Projects in Interconnection Queues, Berkeley Lab. mid-day solar power for evening peak demand. (e.g. a city).
Bitcoin Clean Energy Initiative Memorandum April 2021 02LONG TERM IMPLICATIONS
We believe there are two large implications
if bitcoin mining becomes normalized as
an energy buyer of last resort. First, the
amount of solar and wind energy on the grid
could increase dramatically. As noted above,
there’s currently >200 GW of delayed solar
and wind capacity in the interconnection
queues of just three U.S. electricity markets.
BITCOIN MINING IS AN IDEAL COMPLEMENT FOR For context, that’s approximately double the
GENERATION + STORAGE amount of solar and wind capacity currently
Bitcoin miners, on the other hand, are an ideal installed there.
complementary technology for renewables
and storage. Combining generation with both As society starts deploying more solar and
storage and miners presents a better overall wind, we believe it should bring their LCOE
value proposition than building generation and even further down their cost curves, making
storage alone. As mentioned above, there will the next batch of solar and wind even more
always be physical limitations to how much affordable. If the LCOE falls, it could potentially
energy can be cost effectively stored without unlock profitable new use cases for that
dissipation. However, the daily intermittency electricity like desalinating water, removing Dissipation is the
challenge can be met almost entirely with just CO2 from the atmosphere, or producing green process of losing
a few hours of storage capacity. some stored
hydrogen. Some experts in the field expect energy as heat,
that the marginal cost of producing new also known as
By combining miners with renewables + storage electricity will actually approach zero.1 “heat loss”.
projects, we believe it could:
Black swan
The second major potential impact could be
events are low
1 Improve the returns for project investors a sizable transformation and greening of the probability, high
and developers, moving more solar and wind bitcoin mining industry. It’s estimated that impact events
projects into profitable territory. there’s only 10-20 GW2 of mining capacity like severe
worldwide today. Deploying miners at even winter storms
2 Allow for the construction of solar and or heat waves.
20% capacity with the above mentioned
wind projects even before lengthy grid 200GW of delayed solar and wind projects Utility-scale
interconnection studies are completed (as on U.S. grids alone could result in 40 GW of storage is large
bitcoin miners can offtake the energy until new mining capacity, effectively dwarfing the batteries deployed
selling to the grid becomes possible). by utilities with
entirety of the existing global market. Note
storage capacity
that while many of these projects would likely ranging from a
3 Provide the grid with readily available be built “behind the meter” to utilize otherwise few megawatt-
“excess” energy for increasingly common curtailed solar and wind power whenever hours (MWh) to
black swan events like excessively hot or possible, they would likely still mine with hundreds of MWh.
cold days when demand spikes (e.g. the early grid electricity during other periods when Interconnection
2021 outages in Texas). profitable to do so, so it wouldn’t be entirely queues are
green from day one. But if solar and wind projects awaiting
Note that this “excess” energy will also be quite become even less expensive and constitute approval to
useful as society’s electricity demands increase an increasingly large portion of baseload supply energy to
transmission grids.
with the proliferation of electric vehicles and power, the ultimate trend would continue
the electrification of all devices. In a sense, the moving quickly toward renewable dominated Behind the meter
unlimited appetite of miners allows them to hashrate. We believe deploying such a large refers to using
eat whatever remains of the “duck’s belly.” Given amount of new, geographically diverse hashrate energy directly at
the generation site
these benefits, we believe it makes logical would also have the second order consequence without traveling
sense for utility-scale storage developers to of strengthening the security of the Bitcoin through the grid.
augment their current battery offerings with network, potentially further entrenching
bitcoin miners. bitcoin as a sound currency for all. Hashrate
is the total
computational
power securing
1. Zero Marginal Cost Energy, Max Webster. Dec 2020. the Bitcoin
2. Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index. network.
Bitcoin Clean Energy Initiative Memorandum April 2021 03THIS SECTION OF THE MEMO WAS WRITTEN BY THE TEAM AT ARK INVEST
Bitcoin mining could encourage
investment in solar systems, enabling
renewables to generate a higher
With real-world data, we percentage of grid power with no
(ARK Invest) demonstrate that change in the cost of electricity
bitcoin mining could encourage Size of bubble is bitcoin mining power
investment in solar systems 2,0k 99% of grid
demand met
(solar grids + batteries), enabling 90%
Battery system capacity (MWh)
renewables to generate a higher
1,5k
80%
70%
percentage of grid power with 1,0k
60%
potentially no change in the 50%
cost of electricity. 500
20%
40%
Without bitcoin mining, solar - an intermittent 0
10%
energy source - could supply only 40% of 200 400 600 800 1,0k 1,2k 1,4k 1,6k
grid power before utilities would face the Solar installation power (MW)
need to fund significant investments with
higher electricity prices. With bitcoin mining
integrated into a solar system however, energy Our model demonstrates that integrated bitcoin
providers - whether utilities or independent mining could transfigure intermittent power
entities - would have the ability to play the resources into baseload-capable generation
arbitrage between electricity prices and stations. It suggests that the addition of Bitcoin
bitcoin prices, as well as potentially sell the mining into power developers’ toolboxes
“surplus” solar and supply almost all grid power should increase the overall addressable market
demands without lowering profitability. for renewable and intermittent power sources.
All else equal, with bitcoin mining, renewable
The graph above illustrates the impact that energy could provision a large percentage of
bitcoin mining could have on the adoption any locality’s power economically. As a follow-
of solar systems. Assuming a constant cost of on effect, cost declines associated with scaling
electricity, it traces what percentage of power renewables should most likely accelerate,
solar could provide to the grid. The y-axis is the leaving them even more economically
power generated by solar, the x-axis is battery competitive at equilibrium.
capacity. The size of each circle is proportionate
to the size of the bitcoin mining operation. At WE PROVIDE AN OPEN-SOURCE VERSION AND MORE
each point, the solar system provides a different DETAILED BREAKDOWN OF THE MODEL AND ITS
percentage of the grid’s needs. As bitcoin ASSUMPTIONS HERE1.
mining scales, the solar system increases in
size and provides a higher percentage of the
grid’s needs. Increasing bitcoin mining capacity
could allow the energy provider to “overbuild”
solar without wasting energy. In the bottom left
of the chart, in the absence of bitcoin mining,
renewables can satisfy only 40% of the grid’s
needs. In the top right of the chart, including
solar, batteries, and bitcoin mining can satisfy Baseload-capable
99% of the grid’s demand. generation refers
to the ability to
meet the minimum
level of demand on
an electrical grid
over a span
1. Solar Battery Bitcoin, ARK Invest GitHub. of time.
Bitcoin Clean Energy Initiative Memorandum April 2021 04NEXT STEPS
There are still some important remaining Call to Action
questions about how the above vision could
play out. We see at least three meaningful
business opportunities:
The bitcoin and energy
markets are converging
1 Energy Management Software and we believe the energy
and Services
Energy management companies that
asset owners of today will
specialize in both storage and mining could likely become the miners of
build software to decide in real-time the best tomorrow. Utility executives,
use for a newly created electron: whether
to use it, store it, or mine it. They could also
sustainable infrastructure
provide key asset management tools and funds, and grid-scale storage
analytics to monitor project performance. developers are well-positioned
2 Energy/Miner Marketplaces
to expedite this future by
Managed marketplaces could emerge aligning their strategic
to connect project developers, miners, roadmap and deploying large
and financiers. One key challenge would
be solving the current creditworthiness
scale investments into the
threshold requirements for existing miners. emerging synergy between
bitcoin mining and clean
3 ASIC Manufacturing
New chip foundries could be built to meet
energy production.
the expected surge in demand. Samsung
We plan to follow up with more research
and TSMC are leading the way with recent
explorations and additional resources focused
announcements of new North American on the intersection of bitcoin and clean energy.
plants. We also expect to see continued
hardware and firmware improvements to CONTACT BITCOIN-ENERGY@SQUAREUP.COM
increase the durability of mining equipment
optimized for interruptible power usage.
Application
Specific Integrated
Circuit (ASIC) is
a computer chip
that’s customized
to perform one
function. In this
case, ASICs are
specialized to mine
and secure the
Bitcoin network by
performing a hash
function called
SHA-256.
Taiwan
Semiconductor
Manufacturing
This memo includes content and data (“information”) from ARK Invest, which is a holder of Square, Inc. (“Square,” “we,” Company (TSMC)
“our,” “us”) Class A common stock. This information was made available to us for inclusion in this memo at no cost in is a Taiwanese
furtherance of Square and ARK Invest’s commitment to bitcoin and renewable energy. This information has also recently multinational
been open-sourced and made publicly available as set forth above. Although we believe the information from ARK Invest semiconductor
included in this memo is reliable, we have not independently verified its accuracy or completeness. Square is presenting contract
this information for informational purposes only and Square is not intending to approve or adopt the information. Square manufacturing
undertakes no obligation to update this memo, and the information contained herein may be updated, amended or and design
superseded by subsequent documents or disclosures, or may become outdated and inaccurate over time. company.
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