Store excess solar power production in Bitcoin: IEEE study

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
Dynamic solar power systems that switch between selling excess electricity back to the grid and using it for digital asset mining may be an answer to energy problems, according to an IEEE case study.
The study highlights the two critical problems for block reward miners: massive energy consumption and the resulting environmental pollution.
1/6A groundbreaking new study shows that Bitcoin mining is the most effective way to accelerate rollout of solar panels across the world's cities: More effective than using either subsidies or Batteries by an order of magnitude.Let's dive in
👇 pic.twitter.com/TUcaNLLdEo
Renewable energy sources, such as solar panels, are often touted as an answer to the electricity demands of digital currency. Yet, based on the current way that renewables are used and the technological and economic challenges that remain, it isn't possible for them to meet the demand for energy without further technological advancement and changes to the current energy system.
One of the specific problems—one that is particularly prevalent in Finland, the location of the paper's case study—is that peak loads occur in winter, while renewables such as solar only hit peak generation during summer. This cascades into a broader problem: the perception that the fixed investment cost of getting a solar system up and running is not worth the ultimate savings of switching to renewables.
A common solution to this problem has been to use batteries capable of storing excess electricity until needed. However, this is only so useful: batteries must be discharged past a certain point.
4/6 That's because batteries only give so much storage before they have to be dischargedThis study compared Battery to Bitcoin miningThe difference was stark
Bitcoin is not just a little big better than batteries, it is 4.6x better than batteries: a facemelting 57.7% ROI pic.twitter.com/PdGCvAqWgp — Daniel Batten (@DSBatten) June 10, 2025
The IEEE study essentially proposes storing the value associated with the excess electricity—not in a battery, but in Bitcoin. The study suggests a system that channels excess energy production in peak times—such as summer—into digital asset mining.
This works on similar principles to a model already implemented in domestic renewable production, whereby homeowners with solar power can sell back excess production to the grid.
Under the newly proposed system, homeowners could switch between putting their excess energy back into the grid and putting it into digital asset mining, depending on which is most competitive at the time.
The benefits of this are myriad. Not only does it help populate the digital asset mining ecosystem with clean, renewable energy, but the savings and returns given to homeowners can help reduce the overall annual cost of housing. It also helps offset one of the drawbacks of the sellback model, which is the overall reduction of electricity price due to higher supply, thereby making it less viable for homeowners to sell.
The envisioned model was applied to a 24-apartment building in Helsinki, Finland. The report contains a case study undertaken in Finland using a 24-apartment building in Helsinki with half of its roof space taken up by solar panels. It was found that the building's annual costs could be reduced by 68.1%.
'It has been shown that employing the proposed hedging mechanism will result in sufficient encouragement to invest in PV systems and decrease the annual cost of residential apartments,' reads the study.
The study notes that though the case study bears out the assumptions, more work is still needed to test the model's viability. This could include investigating the potential of peer-to-peer energy trading among apartment tenants and investigating the role that government policy could play in encouraging adoption.
Watch: Bryan Daugherty: Proof of ESG initiative through a sustainable blockchain

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

The Independent

40 minutes ago

• The Independent

Will a heatwave help your solar panels perform better?

High temperatures can slightly reduce the efficiency of solar panels, despite longer daylight hours increasing overall generation. solar panels perform optimally at 25 degrees Celsius or below, with efficiency decreasing by approximately 0.34-0.5 percentage points for each degree above this temperature. During the UK's record 40.3°C heatwave in July 2022, good solar panels operated at about 5 per cent below their peak efficiency. Despite the heat, the commercial solar sector performed well during the record heatwave, contributing 8.6 per cent of the UK's electricity needs that day. Investing in solar panels can be beneficial for homeowners, with payback periods ranging from 5 to 13 years depending on factors like system size, roof orientation, and electricity usage patterns. solar panels have a long lifespan of up to 30 years, making them a viable long-term investment, especially with future heatwaves expected to be longer and hotter in the UK.

Reuters

an hour ago

• Reuters

French heart prosthesis firm Carmat at risk of insolvency by end-June

June 20 (Reuters) - French heart prosthesis company Carmat ( opens new tab is in a critical financial situation and will be at risk of insolvency by the end of this month, it said in a statement on Friday. Carmat needs 3.5 million euros ($4.04 million) to avoid insolvency by the end of June, it said. It said it is actively exploring financing options and is launching a campaign seeking donations through an online platform. ($1 = 0.8673 euros)

Times

an hour ago

• Times

Finland proposes a very novel idea — invest in the public library

In the €100 million Oodi library, which looms over central Helsinki like a cruise ship from the future, robots called Tatu, Patu and Veera trundle back and forth between the shelves and the reading rooms. Against this backdrop, foreign visitors might be surprised to see how many children and teenagers are engaged in an almost unsettlingly archaic activity: reading and borrowing books. In the age of TikTok, Netflix and Candy Crush, it is not just Finland's public libraries that are booming, but also demand for their physical paperbacks and hardbacks. Last year the average Finn visited them nine times and borrowed 15 books, resulting in the highest lending figures for 20 years. The appetite for children's and young adults' literature has risen to a record for the third year in a row, with a total of 38 million loans in 2024. That works out at about 40 books or other pieces of material, such as audiobooks, for each person under the age of 18. In Helsinki, the capital, which has a population of about 690,000, there were 9.2 million library visits and 5.7 million loans. Even by the standards of a country that is often ranked as the most literate on the planet, the numbers are remarkable. In Britain, the total number of loans has fallen to less than half of what it was at the turn of the millennium, despite a tentative recovery in the wake of the pandemic, and about 40 libraries a year are closing. Visits to German public libraries are still about a fifth lower than they were before the advent of Covid-19 and about one in five of them has shut down over the past decade. The most obvious explanation for the phenomenon is that Finland values its libraries and invests accordingly. The state spends about €60 per capita on the public library system each year, approximately four times as much as the UK and six times as much as Germany. • Encyclopaedia Britannica is back and 'it's better than ChatGPT' Where other countries rely on corporate skyscrapers or shopping centres for their visions of architectural modernity, Finland often looks to its libraries, such as Oodi and Vallila in Helsinki, the main Metso library in Tampere, or the revered 20th-century designer Alvar Aalto's projects in Rovaniemi and Seinajoki. They have traditionally served as engines of social mobility and integration. Erkki Sevanen, professor of literature at the University of Eastern Finland, grew up in a working-class family in Eura, a thinly populated district of villages 110 miles to the northwest of Helsinki. 'My parents and relatives did not used to read books, but there was a fine and well-equipped public library in our home village,' he said. 'It opened a whole world of classical literature and philosophy for me in the 1960s and 1970s.' Sevanen said the public libraries were a significant part of the reason he had ultimately pursued a university career, and that today they perform a similar function for immigrants to Finland. 'I am very grateful to this system,' he said. 'It was part of what made my social rise from the working class to academic circles possible.' The roots of this culture predate Finland's independence in 1918. Like large parts of Scandinavia and continental northern Europe, it was profoundly influenced by Lutheran Protestantism and its insistence that each individual should engage with the texts of scripture for themselves. 'The ability to read was a requirement for everyone who wanted to get married. To demonstrate their reading skills, people were tested at church gatherings,' said Ulla Richardson, professor of technology-enhanced language learning at the University of Jyvaskyla. The movement gathered steam in the 19th century, when Finland was a semi-autonomous duchy in the Russian empire and the new public libraries were focal points for an emerging sense of national identity. They remain important hubs for Finnish society, providing a space in which people can be alone and together at the same time. 'Many Finns tend to consider libraries almost as sanctuaries,' Richardson said. Alongside computers and internet access, they offer board games, video games, musical instruments, sewing machines, seasonal theatre passes and even sports equipment in some cases. These services are particularly valued by families with straitened financial means, who might not otherwise be able to afford school textbooks or other media. 'The libraries are spaces that children and teens can access freely, especially if they don't have other places to go,' said Richardson. 'These days we also have self-service libraries open when there are no personnel working.'