Radio-Canada has learned that a dozen major Asian players in the cryptocurrency industry have contacted Hydro-Québec, as they are looking for a place to install their huge computer centers, particularly greedy electricity.
A text by Bahador Zabihiyan
The bitcoin course is progressing and big players in this emerging industry are gauging Quebec to possibly install their computers, which consume a lot of energy to make the vital computer network work for this cryptocurrency.
A dozen of them, Asian companies, have contacted Hydro-Québec in recent months.
These are really big players who contact us [...] The Bell Center in Montreal consumes the equivalent of 5 megawatts of power. The players who contact us can be from 5 megawatts to several hundred megawatts of power.
Éric Filion, Hydro-Québec's Vice President of Customers
The most important "miners" of cryptocurrencies are established in China. These companies have also set up huge "bitcoin mines" on other continents and countries, including Iceland.
Hydro-Québec hopes to convince them to settle here.
Energy, which is very clean, is often a factor that is very important to them. The cost of our energy [...] is the lowest in North America. Our average annual temperature, which is cooler, [...] is becoming an interesting factor for them, because their cooling costs are really lower.
Éric Filion, Hydro-Québec's Vice President of Customers