For years, the country has heavily sponsored its electricity production leading to very low costs. It claims that this has now become unsustainable.
According to native news outlet Arz Digital, the day previous, Rajabi Mashhadi, a spokesperson for Iran's Ministry of Energy, said that the entity would be cutting the ability provide to all or any of the country's licensed crypto mining corporations by the start of July.
Citing an anticipated electricity deficit from the peak-summer season, Mashhadi declared, "There ar presently 118 authorized [digital currency] extraction centers within the country, that should stop their electricity provide from the national grid from the start of July."
"Last week, the country's electricity consumption recorded an all-time high of 62,500 megawatts (MW) during peak consumption, which is a significant figure. According to forecasts, this week's consumption requirement will exceed 63,000 MW, which means we must limit electricity supply."
The move comes after the country's Ministry of Energy reported a disappointing gain of one.2 gigawatts (GW) to its power generation capability in 2021. This was well below the projected gain of three.5 GW, resulting in an influence use deficit.
Due to international sanctions, Asian nation lacks the investment required in power generation capability and fossil fuel production to stay up with consumption. On the other aspect, demand is soaring part because due to the country's extremely low electricity costs. Average house electricity in Iran prices as little as $0.005 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), a fraction of the $0.024 per kWh in its neighbor Iraq and $0.159 per kWh within the u. s.. For political reasons, the Iranian government spends over $60 billion annually in indirect subsidies to depreciate electricity costs.
According to cambridge university, Iran accounted for 0.12% of the Bitcoin (BTC) network's hash rate and was antecedently among the top 10 countries within the world by BTC mining productivity. However, its share of the Bitcoin mining market fell from a peak of 4-dimensional within the years previous, part due to a severe power shortage within the summer of 2021.
( Zhiyuan Sun, Cointelegraph, 2022 )