ERCOT Approves Energization of Bitcoin Mining Center Co-located with Wind Power
The data center and Bitcoin computing site developer which pairs its facilities with co-located renewable energy and names the project after legendary female scientists is energizing a new site in south Texas.
Soluna Holdings has gained grid overseer Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) approval to begin the initial energizing and phased commissioning of Project Kati 1. Project Kati is Soluna’s 83-MW wind-powered data center campus for Bitcoin mining.
The energization will be split between Kati 1A, 48 MW, coming online in three phases and expected to be fully operational by early second quarter, and Kati 1B, 35 MW, following the three-phase approach and expected to be completed by the end of 2026’s third quarter.
“This is a major milestone for project Kati 1, and a clear demonstration of our blueprint for renewable computing at scale,” said John Belizaire, CEO of Soluna, in a statement. “Energization of this site represents an increase of more than 67% in our total capacity, expanding the number of customers we can serve with our signature Relentless Stewardship Bitcoin Hosting platform.”
Project Kati is named after Kati Kariko, a biochemist known for her foundational work on in vitro-transcribed messenger (mRNA) technology. Some of her work has been licensed by BioNTech and Moderna to develop protein replacement technologies.
Kati 1B includes a 12-MW deployment with Cormint, where the company will design, procure, and deliver eight modular data center units to enable deployment by minimizing on-site labor and accelerating energization timelines. Project Kati, powered by the Las Majadas wind energy project, is designed to scale efficiently to support large industrial compute workloads.
Across its project portfolio, Soluna is working on other partnerships including with Siemens and Canaan. Its financial investors include Spring Lane Capital, Generate Capital and Navitas.
Blockchain and cryptocurrency mining are energy intensive due to the amount of calculations performed in each other. A 2023 report by the Climate Portal at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimated that 13 publicly listed mining companies emitted 397 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour, eventually resulting in a forecast of about 7.2 metric tons per year.
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EnergyTech Staff
Rod Walton is head of content for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 17 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.
Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.
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EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.