Japanese TEPCO subsidiary Agile Energy X explores Bitcoin mining with waste Solar Energy

Tokyo-based Agile Energy X Inc., a subsidiary of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), is testing mining bitcoins using renewable energy sources.

On September 8, a local publication called Asahi Shimbun reported that a TEPCO subsidiary was using bitcoin mining, hoping to prevent waste of renewable energy and encourage its widespread use.

The company's president, Kenji Tateiwa, who began his career in TEPCO's nuclear power division, was inspired to work on the project in 2018 when concerns were voiced regarding Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s extensive use of "output control." Power supply and demand should always be balanced because an imbalance has the potential to alter the power frequency and cause a widespread blackout.

Thus, in order to prevent a power shortage—which usually occurs during the day when photovoltaic power generation peaks—Kyushu Electric asked renewable energy providers in its service area to limit their output or temporarily cease producing electricity. This implies that whatever valuable capacity for producing electricity had to be lost, the post added.

Bitcoin mining uses a significant amount of electricity and requires powerful computers known as mining machines. Since bitcoin mining is said to use more energy annually than the entire population of a single European country, cryptocurrencies have come under fire from all around the world for their alleged "waste" of energy.

Tateiwa then realized that he could combine the two—an idea of using Bitcoin mining to save wasted renewable energy, which he discovered in 2018 when Bitcoin was undergoing a crash. He carried out comprehensive demonstration tests and suggested a fresh internal project to develop his concept.

In 2022, Tateiwa went on to found Agile Energy X, a fully owned subsidiary of TEPCO Power Grid Inc., with the intention of sharing the knowledge with other power utilities.

Agile Energy X has set up mining equipment in the prefectures of Gunma and Tochigi, including close to a solar farm. The company is now experimenting with using the mining equipment to produce bitcoins in situations where power generation is expected to exceed demand and be wasted.

Tateiwa stated, "What we are doing has few parallels in Japan." "More green energy would be introduced if our framework is successful."

A growing number of companies in the U.S. state of Texas are mining bitcoins with energy from renewable sources that would not have been used otherwise because they cannot be transmitted to areas where there is a demand. Because of this, the US is now the country that mines the most bitcoins globally.

According to a survey conducted by Asahi Shimbun, in 2023, 1,920 gigawatt-hours of power—or the annual power consumption of 450,000 households—were subject to output control nationwide.

By 2050, the government wants to achieve carbon neutrality, or net zero greenhouse gas emissions, with the assumption that 50–60% of Japan's power comes from renewable sources.

Based on publicly available data, Agile Energy X's simulations revealed that if green energy were to replace fossil fuels as half of the world's power supply, 240,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity would be lost. It would not be possible to store that excess power in storage batteries because it would be too enormous.

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