Bitcoin miner purchases 112-megawatt North Texas wind farm

A major Bitcoin technology company recently purchased a large wind farm in Texas and will subsequently take it off the power grid and use it to energize its mining operations.

MARA Holdings Inc., headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., announced on Dec. 3 that it bought a 114-megawatt (MW) wind farm in Hansford County—about 95 miles north of Amarillo—from a joint venture of National Grid Plc and the Washington State Investment Board, according to a filing with the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, as first reported by Bloomberg. The sale expected to close in the first quarter of 2025.

According to MARA, the company will take the wind farm off the energy grid and, instead, use what it produces to power its Bitcoin mining operation in its North Texas location. The wind farms were not a part of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid, but instead they were located within the Southwest Power Pool, which manages the market for the central U.S., including but not limited to most or parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota.

"This acquisition serves as a blueprint for how the energy and data center sectors can collaborate to create long-term value while advancing sustainability initiatives," said MARA Chairman and CEO Fred Thiel in a statement. "By repurposing machines and energizing them with 100% 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."

Thiel told Bloomberg that the MARA Bitcoin mine will be powered about 30% of the time, and that its computers will be older. A 114-MW facility could power somewhere between 20,000 and 100,000 homes, depending on who you ask.

Bitcoin mining is the process in which Bitcoins are created. They are done so by computers that work to decode mathematical puzzles, a process that can take some time and considerable energy. Bitcoin mines typically use large fans to ensure the comptuers don't overheat, adding to the energy consumption. Historically, the facilities use up a lot of power and have generated backlash from neighbors who have complained about the noise of the machines inside.

Texas has been a haven for cryptocurrency tech companies, primarily because of the state's space, deregulated power market and friendly business climate. Two weeks ago, the Public Utilities Commission adopted a rule requiring crypto and other virtual currency miners within the ERCOT grid to register their locations, ownership information and electricity demands, to further ensure that they could be watchful of this emerging source of energy consumption.