Australian bitcoin firm digitalBTC has announced a multi-year hosting and power supply agreement with Verne Global – a UK-based company specialised in “power-conscious” data centre solutions.
Under the agreement, digitalBTC will instal mining hardware at Verne Global’s data centre campus in Iceland, which is powered exclusively by renewable energy, and will source approximately 50% of its power needs from the company.
The remainder of its Icelandic electricity requirements will also be sourced from green suppliers, digitalBTC indicates.
Cutting operating costs
DigitalBTC highlights a number of advantages provided by the new deal. It expects significant savings on power costs of up to 40%, which will in turn help increase the return on investment (ROI) from its bitcoin mining operations.
The savings will also enable the company to extend the life of the mining hardware, as cheaper power means mining hardware remains economically viable for longer periods of time.
Lastly, using dual-sourced renewable energy will significantly reduce the carbon footprint and allow for more expansion.
Zhenya Tsvetnenko, digitalBTC executive chairman, said the agreement would provide the company with stable, cheap and green power in the long run:
“As well as basing our operations on clean renewable energy, we are also able to drive significant power cost reductions, which will flow straight through to our bottom line, and significantly reduce our carbon emission through the use of green energy. Additional power is very hard to secure in many locations, where the capacity has already been reached.”
Tsvetnenko concluded the contract with Verne Global gives digitalBTC more room to grow and will be factored into the company’s decisions on potential expansions.
Green power, free cooling
Verne Global sources power for its data centre campus from Iceland’s power grid, which almost completely relies on geothermal and hydroelectric power.
Furthermore, the company uses ‘free-cooling’, which essentially means it relies on the naturally low air temperature to keep server temperatures down. This helps the firm save money on cooling, as server rooms usually need a lot of costly air-conditioning to avoid overheating.
Verne Global’s green-powered data centre campus in IcelandVerne Global CEO Jeff Monroe said digital currency is moving into the mainstream and it is becoming clear that digitalBTC is making “sound business decisions” that indicate they will be a significant player in the digital currency industry for years to come.
As far as mining hardware goes, digitalBTC has decided to stick with BitFury. The company ordered its first $2m batch of BitFury miners back in March, with additional tranches following later.
As of 30th June, the company claimed to hold an estimated 3,600 BTC awaiting liquidation and, by July, had mined a total of 8,600 BTC. In a regulatory filing, digitalBTC said it had achieved “complete payback” on $4m-worth of BitFury mining hardware.
In a recent feature, CoinDesk examined how and why bitcoin mining companies are moving to regions with cheaper cooling and energy, with Scandinavia and Iceland proving especially popular.
Iceland geothermal image via Shutterstock