Since 2019, rising fossil-fuel costs have forced the mining industry to rethink the “cost–reliability–compliance” triangle: on one side, hydropower, solar, and wind have become increasingly cost-effective; on the other, storage, grid flexibility, and interconnection lead times are still catching up. Against this backdrop—and the anxiety miners feel about all-in power costs (capex + opex)—we sat down with ViaBTC Founder and CEO Haipo Yang for a deep dive.
How much of Bitcoin mining is using clean energy today, and where is it headed?
Haipo Yang: The share of clean energy has been rising steadily. As fossil-fuel prices climbed after 2019, more miners moved to cleaner sources with a better cost curve. From what we see in ViaBTC’s user sample, roughly 40%–50% of miners still rely on fossil fuels; the rest primarily use clean energy. Hydropower remains the dominant clean, dispatchable source—it accounts for about 30%–40% on its own. Solar, wind, associated gas, and other emerging sources together are still under 20%, but that percentage is clearly trending up.
Miners who stick with fossil energy are usually in resource-rich regions. Texas is a good example: strong grid and infrastructure, ample natural gas, and plenty of sites. In other places where fossil resources are abundant but transmission is constrained or wheeling costs are high, operators will monetize surplus power locally through mining.
Hydropower has long been the favorite clean source. Russia, Canada, parts of South America, and Africa all have abundant hydro. Leading Russian miners tend to cluster in hydropower-rich Siberia; Paraguay, Bhutan, and Ethiopia have attracted large operators such as Bitdeer and HIVE Digital thanks to utility-scale dams.
Solar has drawn a lot of attention recently, but firming solar with storage remains a constraint, so most setups run on a PV-plus-grid model to keep supply stable. Using associated gas from oil and gas fields is also common in Canada, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Argentina. Nuclear hasn’t seen broad adoption in mining—high capex, siting, and licensing cycles extend timelines. And while waste-to-energy generally carries higher generation costs, non-recourse financing and policy support have enabled some early pilots.
At a high level, the industry’s energy mix is clearly shifting toward clean power, even as firming, storage, and grid build-out continue.
What’s the biggest challenge in expanding renewable-powered mining?
Haipo Yang: Power is a miner’s largest ongoing expense—often 30% to 70% of revenue—so the core trade-off is price versus firmness. Mining is hypersensitive to both. You need long, stable runtime for predictable rewards, and you have to push electricity prices down to protect margins.
Fossil fuels have stayed relevant because they’re stable and the ecosystem is mature—but costs keep rising. Since 2019, higher coal prices have pushed up thermal-power costs; in many regions hosting tariffs indexed to thermal have climbed by 50% or even doubled. That’s one reason clean energy’s share has grown.
Among clean sources, hydro is the most mature. The infrastructure is proven at scale. But it’s constrained by geography and hydrology (seasonality). In earlier years, miners even “chased the power,” relocating during dry seasons to regions with surplus electricity. Fortunately, hydro pairs well with pumped-storage hydropower (PSH)—the world’s largest form of grid-scale energy storage. Some Siberian stations can store water multi-year to keep supply balanced.
Solar and wind are advancing quickly and already work in certain scenarios, but 24/7 availability still leans heavily on grid access and storage. Their levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is often lower than traditional power, yet storage LCOE remains relatively high. Where PV is well developed, PV tariffs might be around ~70% of thermal or hydro rates, but storage can cost ~2× the PV tariff, materially lifting the all-in price. To offer some ranges: in Latin America, large wind often runs around $0.018–$0.035/kWh, PV around $0.017–$0.023/kWh. In practice, some miners can procure PV at roughly $0.035–$0.042/kWh, while the associated storage can be about $0.085/kWh. That’s why many operations blend PV with industrial grid supply or PPAs to manage total cost.
Policy is also pivotal. Many countries are investing through capital subsidies, production or investment tax credits, capacity-market mechanisms, and grid-upgrade funds to integrate renewables. **Canada’s smart renewables initiatives, Russia’s capacity-agreement subsidies, and Gulf sovereign investors—Saudi Arabia’s PIF, the Qatar Investment Authority, Oman’s national energy entities—**are accelerating solar and wind. As policy support and capital flows deepen, renewable infrastructure becomes more compelling for miners.
Do you expect more mining companies to embrace renewables? What needs to be in place?
Haipo Yang: I’m optimistic. Power systems worldwide are greening, and because mining is hyper cost-sensitive with portable load, our industry will adopt earlier than many others.
We’re already seeing more generator–miner partnerships to absorb curtailment and shorten payback. Marathon Digital acquired a 114 MW wind farm in Texas to capture curtailed off-peak wind. HIVE Digital last year announced plans for a 100 MW hydro-powered data center in Paraguay. Riot Platforms invested in Reformed Energy, which uses plasma gasification to turn municipal waste into electricity.
Looking ahead, three objective conditions will be the decisive drivers. First, economics: once renewables—on a full-cycle, storage-inclusive basis—decisively undercut fossil power, miners will have no economic rationale to rely on coal or gas, and incremental hashrate will naturally migrate to clean, firmed energy. Next, infrastructure and storage: only when grids offer greater dispatchability, ancillary services, and congestion relief, and storage costs drop materially, can miners run at steady, year-round output, eliminating the need for fossil fuels as a “baseload” backstop.
Policy signals are the third catalyst. When major jurisdictions introduce clear incentives—green tax relief, clean-power credits, accelerated depreciation, preferential wheeling, or explicit clean-energy requirements for compute—those measures become inflection points. We’re already seeing this in the Middle East, where several oil-producing countries have announced carbon-neutrality roadmaps: Saudi Arabia targets 50% renewables by 2030, the UAE aims to lift renewables to 32% by 2030, and Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar are accelerating PV and wind build-outs. These policies and investments will not only speed local energy transitions but also open new siting options and contracting structures for Bitcoin mining companies.
Stepping back, as the economic, technical, and policy conditions mature in tandem, I’m confident more Bitcoin mining companies will shift to renewables and design for “firmed” uptime.
Large miners can use policy and capital to secure cheaper electricity. Does that risk concentrating global hashrate? What does this mean for smaller miners?
Haipo Yang: Large operators do have advantages. They can invest directly in generation and procure power below grid prices, or sign long-tenor PPAs to lock in costs and reduce risk. Public miners like Marathon can tap equity markets to deploy latest-generation, high-efficiency ASICs and back clean-energy projects at scale. That supports continued expansion. To give a sense of scale, TheMinerMag noted that in January 2024, 19 public miners with self-mining produced 22% of network BTC; this year that figure is around 30%, reflecting their growing share of hashrate.
It’s harder for small and mid-sized miners to match those power costs, so the bar is higher—but they aren’t out of the game. We still see many small-rig operators on ViaBTC who rely on the pool for steady cash flow. At roughly $0.06/kWh, break-even BTC prices for mainstream rigs—including common home units—often fall in the $50,000–$70,000 range, still below spot levels near $100,000. Smaller miners also benefit from flexibility and ingenuity. In higher-latitude regions, some repurpose ASIC waste heat for home heating, which lifts overall energy efficiency and lowers effective cost.
With costs rising, how do you see the role of mining pools evolving?
Haipo Yang: If capital and energy advantages help big miners scale, pools are what keep Bitcoin mining open and decentralized.
Pools lowered the barrier to entry dramatically. Early mining was for tinkerers—you configured software or even wrote your own. I know this firsthand; I wrote the initial ViaBTC code myself and remember how high those hurdles were. Today, you connect your rig to a pool and you’re in. Whether you run a large farm or a couple of machines at home, pools deliver stable, predictable payouts.
Block discovery is probabilistic: more hashrate means higher odds. Without pools, small miners would struggle to win a block in any reasonable timeframe and would exit, which would push the network toward centralization. Our PPS+ payout model helps participants of all sizes share rewards fairly, sustaining broad participation and keeping the network secure.
There’s also a misconception that pools create a decentralization risk because a few brands appear to “control” most of the hashrate. Pools don’t own hashrate—miners do. They can switch pools at any time. If a pool acts against miners’ interests, hashrate migrates, which is a powerful market check that protects decentralization in practice.
In 2021, ViaBTC open-sourced its Bitcoin pool stack—mining services, protocol implementations, and modules for various merged-mining coins. Any technically inclined miner can build on it to optimize or launch their own services. I believe in open source; it’s good for the community’s health and invites more people to participate and benefit from mining.
At the end of the day, whether your hashrate is massive or modest, whether you’re deeply technical or not, pools are the coordination layer and payout infrastructure that make joining and earning straightforward—and they’re a key force pushing Bitcoin toward greater openness, transparency, decentralization, and shared prosperity.
