Anhui is the latest Chinese province to begin closing down cryptocurrency mining projects following China’s warnings in May that it will not tolerate such virtual currencies and as it wrestles with a severe shortfall in power supply.
Anhui will shut down all Bitcoin mining projects, the provincial newspaper reported today. The province is struggling with a large gap between electricity supply and demand, so it will restrict the building of new projects that consume huge amounts of energy.
It will also be following the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region as well as northwestern Qinghai, southwestern Sichuan and Yunnan provinces’ lead in stamping out Bitcoin mining. This follows a directive from the Financial Stability and Development Committee of the State Council in May calling for such a crackdown, saying that virtual currencies have no real value and their price can be manipulated.
At present, Anhui can only supply 48.4 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year, yet demand is expected to reach 73.1 million kWh by 2024, the report added.
The eastern province will change its pricing structure to make the difference between peak and valley periods more pronounced, the report said. It will use geothermal energy and natural gas to help reduce electricity loads during the height of summer and winter when air-conditioning demands are particularly high.
Source: Yicai Global
