The rivers deep in the mountains of Sichuan are already surging. In three months, they will usher in a high water season, and the cost of water and electricity will not exceed 20 cents.
Wang Shengli has already calculated the time, and now he has already set off to grab a piece of land that belongs to him before the arrival of hydropower in Sichuan's flood season.
He is a bitcoin miner. In the past year, the price of Bitcoin fell below US$3,000 in the bear market, coupled with the gradual tightening of the management of mines by the state, more than half of the mine owners were either cleared due to non-compliance with thermal power mines, or due to electricity costs. Shut down when it is higher than the mining income.
Based on a simple calculation by Odaily based on the decline in the computing power of the entire Bitcoin network, at least 820,000 mining machines are currently waiting to be turned on because the electricity cost is higher than the mining income.
secondary title
call
After the BCH fork, the price of Bitcoin plummeted. At that time, Wang Shengli was just a small mine owner with 5,000 machines in Anhui.
At the end of the year, many mines were unable to survive and shut down. He took the opportunity to buy second-hand mining machines, and went to Sichuan to build a medium-sized mine with 30,000 seats.
Before the flood season comes in June, building a mine in Sichuan is one of Wang Shengli's plans.
Zhao Miao, the owner of the mine in Sichuan, has an annual average power of 200,000 machines. Although some S9 mining machines have been shut down, they still talked about Fengshui power with 10,000 machines and 100,000 machines at the end of the year.
Zhao Miao told Odaily: "Sichuan's hydropower is quoted in three stages, 1.6-1.8 gross in the wet season, 2.8-3 gross in the normal water period, and 3.4-4.1 gross in the dry season." At present, Zhao Miao's 10,000-seat mine power design has been Completed, the 100,000-seat mine is still in the process of power design.
On the eve of New Year's Day, more than 10 miners from Xinjiang, Guizhou, Gansu and other places came to negotiate with Zhao Miao about the power price of the mine's trusteeship and the first-hand cost of electricity for the joint mine.
However, a miner who went to Sichuan to talk about electricity told Odaily, "Although the electricity price in the high water season is attractive enough, the other party did not give a suitable electricity price. We are a little anxious, but there is no way. It is a bit difficult to set the electricity price now. In the early days, a penny higher than the price of peers may be a loss.”
Liu Anna, the mine owner in Beijing, has also recently received many miners who came to discuss cooperation. In order to meet this year's high water season, Anna Liu started looking for electricity in October last year, and built two mines with a total of 100,000 aircraft seats in Sichuan and Yunnan in December.
We first apply for qualifications and then build mines. Liu Anna said: "Once the power is confirmed, we must first establish a relationship with power resources. How can we get a power construction site without a strong relationship? In the local area, getting power is money, and everyone wants to eat this fat."
In addition to running a mine, Anna Liu also runs a mining company. She bought 50,000 second-hand Antminer S9 and T9+, except for a small part that was sold, and put the rest in her own mine.
Wang Jie, a comprehensive mining machine hosting service provider, is also deploying a 150,000-seat Fengshui Power Mine. On the other hand, he is still purchasing second-hand Antminer S9 mining machines.
Wang Shengli told Odaily that building a mine is mainly about financial resources. It is estimated that the mine will be built with an investment of about 13 million. Without the support of the consortium, the mine will not be built.
In addition, partnerships with local utilities are also important.
"The power plant is still a big interest group. For example, if the ex-factory price of hydropower is 0.18 yuan, but others give you 0.22 yuan, 0.04 is their interest." In Wang Shengli's own words, talking about electricity is a matter of twists and turns. If the cooperative relationship is not in place, it is easy to be snatched away by other powerful mine owners.
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Eager to win
Sichuan's hydropower resources rank first in the country. According to the 2017 Sichuan Hydropower Directory, there are 6,633 large and small hydropower plants, 1.8 times the number of hydropower stations in Hunan and 2.17 times the number of hydropower stations in Yunnan.
At present, Sichuan has nearly 75 million kWh of hydropower installed capacity, and the annual power generation capacity reaches 378 billion kWh (75 million hydropower installed capacity ✖️ 210 days of high water season ✖️ 24 hours).
Wang Jie said that due to the limited power transmission channels in Sichuan, there is about 50 billion kilowatt-hours of surplus electricity that cannot be transmitted every year. If these excess power cannot be consumed, it can only be wasted.
Hydropower Compared with the Southern Power Grid, it is not particularly difficult to approve electricity use in Sichuan.
Large power supply, stable power, low cost, and low risk have attracted miners from all over the country to go to Sichuan.
Odaily learned from a number of mine owners in Sichuan that the cost electricity price in this year's wet season is expected to be between 1.4 and 1.9 gross. If the price difference and operating expenses are added, the managed electricity price will be between 2 and 2.6 gross.
This is much cheaper than the managed electricity prices in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang. According to Song Weining, the owner of the mine in Inner Mongolia, most of the electricity in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang is thermal power, and the electricity price is mostly between 3-3.5 cents.
Thermal power is expensive and not so flexible.
Miners who signed up for hydropower during the wet season can choose to shut down if the electricity price is higher than the currency price during the dry season. Thermal power is not so flexible, and it doesn’t mean that they can shut down if they want to.
Song Weining told Odaily that more and more miners and mine owners are going to Sichuan to find electricity, and the miners hope to make back the money they lost before when the flood season comes.
But things are not so easy. At present, the national power policy is still being tightened. Some non-compliant small hydropower stations have been shut down. The demand for electricity is increasing, and the power resources of the industry's leading power sources are becoming more and more limited.
secondary title
the game
Song Weining also analyzed that Fengshuipower is indeed good for the mining industry, and it is even more good for miners. But there are four situations that will be bad for mine owners:
1. 80% of miners in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia urgently need to move to Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan before the flood season. If this happens, it will not be good for local thermal power mine owners;
2. At present, the number of machine slots in the mine is far more than the total number of miners’ machines, and the supply exceeds demand. In order to compete for customers, the mines that have obtained Fengshui Power are bound to stage a price war;
3. The cost electricity price is controlled below 1.8 gross, and accordingly the managed electricity price will not exceed 2.6 gross. It is difficult for a mine with a cost higher than 1.8 gross to have a competitive advantage.
Whether it is the mine owners who have already grabbed power resources or are robbing power resources, although they estimate that the cost of electricity is between 1.5 and 1.8 cents, some even say that they can get the cost of electricity at 1.2 cents, but before the flood season, Mine owners are unwilling to sign an accurate managed electricity price with miners.
The market is floating. If the price of electricity in the wet season is reduced or other mines have cheaper electricity, it will be unfair to the miners.
How to prevent the risk of electricity rush during the high water season? Zhao Chuan, the owner of the mine, looked at the dynamics. He believes that the price of electricity changes with the market. As long as you can ensure that your electricity price is lower than 90% of the electricity consumption of the mining circle, you will be fine. Can be the winner of this bear market. "It's useless to consider other complicated factors. If you want to mine, fight for strength and get cheap electricity."
For example, the average electricity cost of the entire network is 30 cents, so at worst you have to get 20 cents of electricity for risk hedging. When the currency price drops by 100 US dollars, a batch of mines will be shut down, and the computing power will also drop. So you have to make sure that you can become 10% of the people who don't turn off their phones, and you win.
