Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) has acquired an onshore wind farm in Texas with the intention to develop and operate a behind-the-meter Bitcoin mining operation on the site.
The wind project, located in Hansford County, Texas, has a capacity of 114MW, and 240MW of interconnection capacity. MARA claims the wind project will power 100 percent of the Bitcoin mining operation.
The seller of the wind asset and terms of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in Q1 2025.
The wind farm's description matches that of the Great Plains Wind Farm, which is owned and operated by National Grid Renewables. DCD has contacted the company to confirm.
“By repurposing machines and energizing them with 100 percent renewable, zero-marginal energy cost, we’re leveraging renewable resources that would have otherwise been curtailed, reducing our bitcoin production costs through vertical integration, and demonstrating MARA’s commitment to environmental stewardship,” said Fred Thiel, MARA’s chairman and CEO.
The project will use last-generation ASIC mining hardware. MARA intends to deploy the hardware through its Advanced ASIC Retirement Initiative, which aims to provide an alternative to discarding retired machines and utilizing stranded power assets that would otherwise suffer curtailment issues.
“The program is expected to not only extend the life of the miners beyond their previous economic lives,” MARA’s CFO, Salman Khan, said.
Bitcoin miners have been criticized for their increasing energy usage. Crypto mining operations currently consume around 2.3 percent of US electricity, and it requires roughly 155,000kWh to mine one Bitcoin.
MARA contends that using stranded renewable assets will alleviate grid congestion, support renewable energy development across the state, and not put undue strain on the grid.
This is the second off-grid power deal MARA has signed over the last few months. In October, it launched a 25MW micro data center operation across oil wellheads in Texas and North Dakota.
The data center will be powered exclusively by excess natural gas from oilfield production that would have otherwise been flared. The operation will be distributed across wellheads in Texas and North Dakota, with operational status expected by January 2025.
In November, Deutsche Telekom launched a similar program exploring the feasibility of operating Bitcoin mining infrastructure with surplus renewable energy in Germany.
