Kenyan miners use solar energy

Bithub Africa has started using solar energy to mine Bitcoin and Ethereum. John Karanya, founder and CEO of a small Kenyan mining operation, hopes the technology will spread across the continent and challenge the perception that mining poses a threat to the environment.

“We are currently using solar energy to test its reliability as a power source for cryptocurrency mining,” Karanya told news.Bitcoin.com in an interview on October 30. “We are still analyzing the data, but we can already say for sure that blockchain technology is driving the development of the renewable energy industry around the world.”

Bithub Africa, which was founded in 2015, is distributing and implementing blockchain solutions in Africa using solar panels.

One of the problems that Bithub Africa may face is the problem of instability of such systems. When the sun doesn't shine, businesses lose money because the company's miners have to work nonstop. Some solar systems, however, can power miners using energy stored in batteries.

Solar panels already light up many homes in urban and rural Africa. When Bitcoin mining came under criticism due to the large amount of energy consumed, new business models that use clean energy began to emerge. However, Karanya believes that this criticism is incorrect.

“Recently, the community has begun to worry that mining has a negative impact on the environment and is one of the causesglobal warming”, he wrote in an email. “We disagree. In fact, we believe the opposite - blockchain and cryptocurrencies will drive innovation in the energy sector.”