29 January 2021, Friday, 18:56 144

Energy Ministry And Energoatom Planning To Conclude Memorandum With Hotmine On Cryptocurrency Mining At Ukrainian NPPs

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

The Ministry of Energy and the Energoatom national nuclear energy generating company are planning to conclude a memorandum with Hotmine (Ukraine) on cryptocurrency mining at Ukrainian nuclear power plants (NPPs).

The Ministry of Energy has said this in a statement, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

“The future is with new technologies that can be used to balance the energy system and still receive financial benefits. The idea of creating a data center based on a nuclear power plant certainly deserves attention, because the Ukrainian Unified Energy System (UES) has unused base capacities. Steady load on nuclear power units could bring additional income to the state-owned Energoatom, and give an opportunity to work for a business that also pays taxes to the national budget," Deputy Energy Minister for Digital Development, Digitalization and Digital Transformations Yevhen Vladimirov is quoted as saying.

At the same time, he noted that, first of all, all issues of regulatory support for the activities of such data centers should be resolved, studies and calculations of the electricity required for the operation of "digital energy stations" should be carried out, which will increase the capabilities of the UES of Ukraine to balance production and consumption volumes electricity, the development of telecommunications infrastructure and increasing investment attractiveness.

It is noted that representatives of the Ministry of Energy, Energoatom and business have agreed to continue cooperation and consolidate it with a memorandum, which will define specific measures to improve investment attractiveness.

Hotmine is a research and development company that specializes in R&D, mining equipment development, design, construction and maintenance of data centers.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, in May 2020, the Cabinet of Ministers supported the initiative on the possibility of mining cryptocurrencies at NPP sites.

Earlier, the Ministry stated that the implementation of a cryptocurrency mining project would allow maintaining a guaranteed load on nuclear power plants and enable enterprises to raise additional funds.