Even if Bitcoin rises 30% a year this renewable mining model still loses money as hashrate keeps pace
Bitcoin trades near $63,600, below the lowest Bitcoin price researchers tested against a modeled wind-powered mining operation in a new Energy Economics study.
At that price level, their model shows no payback within six years under any curtailment scenario they ran.
The study, by researchers at the Technological University of the Shannon, models a 20 MW Bitcoin mine connected to a hypothetical 100 MW Irish wind farm, using hourly market data from 2024.
Even with 25% of the wind farm's output curtailed, the modeled project fails to recover its investment inside the six-year equipment horizon once Bitcoin's price falls to €60,000.
The bullish case comes first
The 20 MW mine captures 83.1% of the wind farm's annual dispatch-down energy, the electricity Irish grid operators instruct offline because transmission lines cannot carry it. Total system revenue climbs from €22.2 million to €29.2 million, a 32% increase, and the wind farm's effective capacity factor rises from 29% to 32%.
Scaling the mine to 30 MW pushes absorption to 93.4% of curtailed power and system revenue to €31.1 million.
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