Construction to begin on 36 megawatt Moroccan wind farm for Bitcoin mining

Enlarge / An artist’s rendering of a combination Bitcoin mine and turbine farm. (credit: Soluna)

Morocco has a lot of prime real estate for wind energy along its southern coast. But without robust transmission lines to move electricity from there to more populated centers, a traditional wind energy company might wait years for a grid connection before it could start making money.

But if you’re connected to the Internet, one option might be to build a grid-isolated wind farm and use it locally while you wait for a connection to the rest of the grid. In Soluna’s case, the money-making byproduct that makes local use worth it is mining Bitcoin.

Soluna, a bitcoin-mining company, is going to start construction on a 36 megawatt (MW) wind farm near Dakhla, Morocco, in January 2019, company spokesperson Yoav Reisler told Ars. The company has the rights to 37,000 acres of land, which could eventually accommodate up to 900MW of wind capacity.