Bitcoin made in Ethiopia: how is it done?
For this video, we left the workshop and headed to our 15 MW Bitcoin mining farm in central Ethiopia. Power grid, mandatory shutdowns, cooling, noise, maintenance: we show you everything it takes to run a Bitcoin mine, far beyond choosing the machines. The video is in French.
A 15 MW farm in central Ethiopia
Around 5,500 miners run on this site. The project had been in preparation for two years, and at the time of filming our teams had been on site for three months. This is self-mining: we mine on our own account, and there are no customer machines on this site.
Why Ethiopia? A few years ago, the government opened the national power grid, EEP, to miners by granting them mining licences. The principle: miners only use the energy that is left over, the energy the population does not need.
Curtailment: switching machines off when the grid needs it
The grid is now reaching saturation, so the state imposes curtailment periods, meaning an obligation to switch off part of the machines. At the time of filming, around 2,500 of our machines were shut down for this reason. An example: if 15 MW are available over a day and the population needs 10 MW, the farm has to cut its consumption by at least 66% to give that electricity back to the grid.
The electricity used on site comes largely from hydroelectric dams. We filmed during the rainy season, when the dams, whose levels are then extremely low, fill up again. During this period of about 2 to 3 months, curtailment is mandatory.
Power and cooling: the site's infrastructure
- Power supply: a substation of 15 MW or more feeds all the miners. The cables run to PDUs (power distribution units), fitted with circuit breakers, which supply the machines;
- Cooling: the miners are air-cooled. Air comes in through "water curtains", panels of moistened cardboard onto which litres of water are injected, so the air is cooler when it reaches the miners;
- Hot air extraction: the hot air is blown into the "hot room", from where dozens of fans extract it. Good airflow across the whole mine prevents breakdowns;
- Water recycling: a recycling system covers the entire farm, because you cannot use litres and litres of water in regions where it is essential.
Air cooling comes at a price: noise. On site it measures around 75 decibels, and the farm can be heard about 2 km away. During filming it was about 26 °C. Another constraint: the humidity from the water curtains gets inside the miners. We therefore clean them regularly so that the hashboards, the control boards and even the power supplies (PSUs) do not oxidise.
Running a farm day to day
About a dozen people work on this 15 MW farm: cleaners, technicians and two electrical engineers, to keep it running at full potential. Logistics, repairs and day-to-day management all have to be organised, while keeping the power grid secure. And 15 MW is far from the biggest: some farms reach 600 to 700 MW, with logistical needs to match.
Our after-sales service in Grenoble
Very heavy rain stopped us from finishing the filming on site as planned, so we wrap up the video from Normandy, near our warehouse where orders are shipped from. A chance to remind you that our after-sales service carries on: our repair workshop is based in Grenoble, because we did not want to ask you to send your machine to another country to get it repaired. Machines can be repaired in 95% of cases, and for our customers, repairs cost nearly 30% less.
Want to mine Bitcoin on your own scale? Browse our Bitcoin miners and estimate your earnings with our Bitcoin mining profitability calculator. Don't have the infrastructure at home? Have a look at our miner hosting, and if a machine breaks down, see our after-sales service and warranty page. Do you like this site-visit format? Let us know in the comments under the video.