The Ministry of Energy proposes to increase tariffs for mining centers many times over
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According to Kommersant, the Ministry of Energy wants to increase electricity transmission tariffs several times for industrial farms for cryptocurrency mining. The ministry wants to increase prices in energy-scarce regions, including the most popular for cryptocurrency mining, the Irkutsk region. The goal is to force mining centers to move to regions with excess capacity. According to the owners of mining farms, the ministry’s initiative discriminates against legal consumers of electricity and will lead to a shutdown of the industry due to losses.
Several sources in the energy industry told Kommersant that the Ministry of Energy proposes to increase electricity transmission tariffs for legal entities engaged in cryptocurrency mining by two to five times. Tariffs may be increased where there is a shortage of generation, there are risks of disruption of power supply and problems with connecting new consumers.
In particular, we are talking about Buryatia, the Trans-Baikal Territory and the Irkutsk region, where a significant part of the farms are located due to low tariffs. The purpose of increasing tariffs is to force them to go to other regions. The Ministry of Energy did not respond to Kommersant’s request.
According to Kommersant, the ministry proposed a new tariff regulation scheme for mining centers on behalf of Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak (Kommersant has the protocol dated July 6). Such a measure could become a precedent, since electricity transmission tariffs for consumers are the same regardless of their activity and differ only in voltage level. On behalf of Mr. Novak, the Ministry of Energy, together with the Ministry of Digital Development and the Federal Antimonopoly Service, must come up with criteria by which tariff authorities will identify mining centers for calculating a special tariff.
To identify mining centers, the Ministry of Energy, according to Kommersant’s information, considers it necessary to create special commissions in the regions. Miners will be determined by a flat electricity consumption schedule close to maximum power. Commission specialists will travel and check equipment on the premises of legal entities, as well as study Internet traffic and the list of visited sites of such companies. Checks are needed so as not to confuse mining farms and data processing centers (DPCs), believes one of Kommersant’s sources. The Ministry of Digital Development told Kommersant that they are “carefully studying the proposals of their colleagues.”
The total volume of industrial mining in the Russian Federation, according to Kommersant’s interlocutors, is about 2 GW, and the optimal tariff for profitable operation is 4–4.5 rubles. for 1 kWh. According to Kommersant’s estimates based on Time2Save data, the Ministry of Energy’s proposals will increase the final price of electricity for high-voltage mining farms in the Irkutsk region by 18–73%, to 3.2–4.7 rubles. per 1 kWh, in Buryatia – by 66-333%, up to 4-11 rubles, and in the Trans-Baikal Territory – by 33-133%, up to 5-8.9 rubles.
Alexander Novak instructed to work out other restrictions for farms. These include a ban on new connections to power grids, low priority when connecting in regions with energy shortages, as well as the possibility of long-term disconnection from the network. According to Kommersant, at a meeting with Alexander Novak, the issue of complete isolation of mining farms from the Unified Energy System of Russia was raised. We are talking about the forced transfer of such consumers to their own generation.
An increase in network tariffs for legal mining centers several times is the end for the industry, says Roman Zabuga, co-owner of BWC UG. He believes that it will be problematic for regulators to identify mining farms. In particular, widespread inspections of equipment on the premises of legal entities look dubious from a legal point of view.
The proposed solutions, including multiple increases in electricity transmission tariffs and denial of equal access to the power grid, discriminate against mining, BitRiver said.
Such measures will have a negative impact on bona fide market participants and will not have an impact on unscrupulous players who will continue to illegally connect to networks and carry out mining at the rates of individuals. Problems in the power industry associated with mining can be overcome by combining operational measures, such as conducting inspections of unscrupulous miners, with systemic measures, namely the development and adoption of full-fledged comprehensive regulation of mining and circulation of cryptocurrency in Russia, they believe.
The Community of Energy Consumers agrees that it is wrong to discriminate against legal mining: “It is necessary to create a space of choice – the miner either locates the data center where he wants and bears the obligation to pay and maintain the infrastructure necessary to overcome the shortage, or moves to surplus energy hubs where the infrastructure is ready accept it without significant additional costs.”
The proposed multiple increase in tariffs for legal consumers is not due to the actual costs of network companies, but to the desire to squeeze consumers out of a region in which the energy system is not able to fulfill its main function – to satisfy the demand for electricity, notes Sergei Sasim, director of the Center for Research in the Electric Power Industry at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. He emphasizes that the tariff is used as a tool to prevent load growth, and not as an investment signal for infrastructure development, which is fundamentally different from previous approaches.
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