Canada’s British Columbia To Stop New Crypto Miner Connections To Renewable Energy

Canada’s British Columbia will stop accepting new connection requests from new crypto mining projects to its clean and renewable energy infrastructure.

An Oct. 20 statement, the province said there will be a “permanent ban on new BC Hydro connections to the electricity grid” for crypto miners that will come into effect later this year.

That follows an 18-month ban that was rolled out back in December 2022. This was done so that the government could take the time to develop a permanent framework that balances the needs of crypto miners, residents and businesses in the region.

In the announcement, the British Columbia government also said that the crypto mining sector’s “disproportionate energy consumption” offers “limited economic benefit.”

That’s as pending crypto projects would have demanded more than 11,700 gigawatt-hours of power each year, which is enough electricity to supply hundreds of thousands of homes across British Columbia.

Crypto mining machines are known for their high energy use. 

Energy Supply To AI And Data Centers Will Be Capped

In the announcement, the government acknowledged the potential economic gains that could come from AI and data centers.

It said “data centers and AI can offer tremendous potential for innovation, information technology and data sovereignty.” It added that AI adoption will “continue to improve productivity and competitiveness” for British Columbia industries. 

While the government sees the potential economic benefits of AI and data centers, it said the “rapid expansion and high energy consumption” of these emerging sectors will “require balanced, forward looking-planning. 

In addition to the high energy demands, projects in those sectors “generally provide fewer jobs and revenues for the province” than natural-resource projects, the government said.

To manage the growth of the AI and data center sectors, the British Columbia government said that it will launch a “competitive call for projects” in early 2026 for a two-year period.

During this period, BC Hydro will provide companies in these sectors with 300 megawatts for AI and 100 megawatts for data centers. 

IREN Shares Slide 2% On News Of Upcoming Legislation

One of the crypto miners that the new legislation could impact is IREN, which has multiple sites in British Columbia. According to the company’s website, the firm has three main sites, namely Mackenzie, Prince George, and Canal Flats. Combined, these sites use 160 megawatts of energy in the region.

Recently, the company also pivoted to AI and HPC. In September, the company announced that it had doubled its AI-cloud capacity to around 23,000 GPUS through the purchase of approximately 7,100 Nvidia B300s, 4,200 Nvidia B200s, and around 1,100 AMD MI350Xs for its Prince George data center. 

Following the news of the upcoming legislation, IREN shares dropped over 2%, according to data from Google Finance. 

IREN share price (Source: Google Finance)