The Bitcoin mining farm will be powered by an integrated wind and solar power generation park located in Metapán. The investment commitment is $1 billion.
A group of Bitcoin entrepreneurs announced on Monday the creation of Volcano Energy, a private bitcoin mining project, which will be powered by a 241 megawatt (MW) renewable energy generation park in the village of El Shiste, municipality of Metapán, Santa Ana.
According to Max Keiser, the company’s CEO, the first phase consists of a $250 million investment. However, the total commitment is to reach $1 billion.
The development of the project is driven by Josué López, a Salvadoran engineer, who serves as CEO of Volcano Energy, as well as leading companies in the cryptocurrency industry, with the collaboration of leading renewable energy technology manufacturers and bitcoin mining experts worldwide.
.@Volcano_Energy 🌋🔌
“We Got The Power” 🇸🇻 pic.twitter.com/uRmqZMYUuB
— Volcano Energy 🇸🇻🌋🔌 (@Volcano_Energy) June 2, 2023
“Our main objective is to position El Salvador as a leading global player in the bitcoin mining industry, while promoting energy competitiveness, diversification, and geographic expansion of the bitcoin network, as part of our unwavering commitment to establish a global bitcoin standard,” the businessman commented to “Diario El Salvador”.
On the other hand, Keiser indicated that the energy generation capacity of this first phase will be divided between 169 MW of solar photovoltaic energy and 72 MW of wind energy, resulting in a total capacity of 241 MW. This is while the infrastructure to extract geothermal energy is being developed, which will take about five years.
“El Salvador is building large intermittent wind and solar generation to monetize the expansion into the geothermal bitcoin mining base,” he said.
“The ambition is to be the largest mining farm in the world, with initial computational power exceeding 1.3 EH/s (exahashes per second, the number of computational operations that one miner or the network of miners as a whole is capable of). We will start with 241 MW, but the ambition is to eventually reach 20,000 MW when we start operating with geothermal energy. The country is rich in geothermal energy and there are many opportunities,” he said.
On the other hand, he explained that the Government of El Salvador will play a crucial role in the planning and execution of this initiative, and will have a preferential participation equivalent to 23% of the revenues. At the same time, investors will own 27% of the profits, and the remaining 50% will be invested in the expansion of energy production capacity and the advancement of bitcoin mining.
He also assured that hundreds of jobs would be generated for Salvadorans, including engineers, programmers, and energy infrastructure developers.
Among the investors is Tether, the company that operates a fintech platform that powers the Tether stablecoin. Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer of this firm, explained in a statement that they will provide capital and share their expertise in energy, hardware, and communications.
Tether is expanding its energy investments, providing capital, tech expertise and advisory to the new venture Volcano Energy🌋
The potential of El Salvador 🇸🇻 as the global energy and #bitcoin hub is immense and at @Tether_to we’re grateful to be part of this opportunity ❤️… https://t.co/wA3dnlQyjB
— Paolo Ardoino 🍐 (@paoloardoino) June 5, 2023
“We are excited to be part of the pioneers in renewable energy as investors and advisors […] Volcano Energy represents one of the strategic initiatives we are investing in and we look forward to working alongside Josué López and his team to turn El Salvador into a global force in renewable energy production,” he said.
