Solar-Powered Bitcoin Miner Farm Starts Operations in Colorado

Photo: Aspen Creek Digital

Aspen Creek Digital has started Bitcoin mining at a 6-megawatt solar-powered facility in western Colorado. The company supports renewable energy-based Bitcoin mining with a strategic mix of behind-the-meter and wholesale resources, resulting in a lower all-in cost of retail power.

Aspen Creek was founded in January and its Bitcoin mining is powered by a 10-megawatt solar farm. According to a statement shared with CoinDesk, the company wants to start by mining Bitcoin in its data center and eventually offer the service to other businesses. The Colorado data center will operate S19 Bitcoin mining machines. It is co-located with a 75,000-square-foot research-and-development center and fulfillment facility. The facility will serve as a centralized hub for testing, maintaining, storing, and training Aspen Creek's computing infrastructure.

Despite the ongoing bear market, the company managed to raise enough money to purchase the required 240 MW switchgear and transformers. “We wanted to make sure that we had the appropriate infrastructure on hand to build out our first phase. So for our projects, now we actually have more than enough,” CEO Alexandra DaCosta said.

Crypto-focused financial services firm Galaxy Digital was impressed enough by the miner’s management team and “power first” approach that it allocated some of Galaxy’s own miners to be hosted at Aspen Creek’s Colorado site. “The best time to build is a bear market and people shouldn't be afraid of the market conditions, they just have to make sure that they're doing it appropriately and effectively,” Amanda Fabiano, head of mining at Galaxy, told CoinDesk.

Aspen Creek is also developing Bitcoin mining sites across Texas. Its second facility, which is on track to be operational this summer, is a 30-MW data center capable of hosting 10,000 ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) miners co-located behind-the-meter with an 87-MW solar farm. And a third project is a 150-MW data center, also co-located behind-the-meter, with a 200-MW solar farm.

The shift to using solar energy as a power source comes as more miners look to use renewable energy sources for their operations as legislators around the world scrutinize miners' energy consumption. More recently, Blockstream and Block said they are building a pilot crypto mining facility in Texas that will be powered by Tesla's solar panels and batteries.

© 2022, Eva Fox | Tesmanian. All rights reserved.

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