The municipal hydroelectric power plant “Alta Novella” in Borgo d’Anaunia, Trentino, will be used to do cryptocurrency mining.
The case of the Municipality of Trentino that will mine cryptocurrencies
can be seen from the deliberation report n. 197 of the Council of the small municipality of Val di Non, thanks to which the extension of the electrical system for a new self-consumption unit has been authorized.
20 electronic devices defined as “supercomputers” (i.e. ASICs) for cryptocurrency mining will be installed in the farm, with a power of 100 Thash/s.
The resolution also states that the Bitcoin network is a public network designed to ensure and implement the fundamental principles of decentralization, transparency, security, immutability, consensus, accountability and programmability.
Then they add:
“With this project, the Municipality of Borgo d’Anaunia will be a protagonist and main actor to promote blockchain technology as a tool for research and sustainable development of web 3.0, as well as to make available a technology that allows the world population that is currently excluded from the traditional monetary system to be included in it, as the WFP (World Food Program) of the UN is already doing for example”.
The hydroelectric plant
The new plant will also allow the identification of new opportunities to upgrade the current electrical system of the hydroelectric plant.
The new Municipality of Borgo d’Anaunia has inherited from the former Municipality of Fondo the concession for the derivation of water from the Novella stream, which generates a jump of almost one hundred meters and produces an average power of 476 kW. The former municipality of Fondo, in order to exploit this jump, had built the hydroelectric plant “Alta Novella”, with an average annual production of about 2,2 GWh.
The plant was built in 1925 by the hydroelectric consortium “Alta Novella”, then nationalized by Enel in 1972. Afterwards it was abandoned for decades, until about 25 years ago it was taken over by the Municipality and reactivated.
The plant’s self-consumption for crypto mining will be added to the hydroelectric power.
The goal of the project seems to be to resell the computing power of the mining farm at a price of 0.10 cents per Thash/s.
It appears, therefore, that the municipality will not be directly mining Bitcoin, but will simply make the investment and then provide that computing power to private companies interested in using it to mine Bitcoin.
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