Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear power plant has selected a company to build a huge data center for mining cryptocurrencies in Riv. After a tender process, Energoatom chose the Kyiv Energy Construction Company to handle the crypto mining project for nuclear power plants.
The operator of a nuclear power plant expects to open the data center in 2022
According to official records, the data center will be located at the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant after the construction company financed 8.92 million hryvnia (USD 317,620). The only competitor in the tender was Ukrenergobudproek. However, they allegedly made an expensive offer, regional news agency Forklog said.
Kyiv Energy Construction Company expects the data center building to be completed by August 31, 2022. According to the announcement, the contractor must send documentation detailing the entire process. It includes “host state registers, electronic archives and computer facilities”.
From a technical point of view, the nuclear power plant has an output of 2,657 megawatts and was built in the late 1970s. The operation of the state nuclear facilities also began in early 1980.
In October 2020, Energoatom also signed a memorandum with a subsidiary of crypto-mining giant Bitfury. With the new data center, local media believes Bitfury miners could move their operations to the power plant’s facilities.
Ukraine’s interest in building crypto mining data centers in nuclear power plants
The deal between Energoatom and Kyiv Energy Construction Company is not a surprising move. Indeed, in May 2020, the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy asked Energoatom to conduct research to assess the feasibility of crypto-mining in their nuclear power plants.
As an anecdotal fact regarding crypto mining in Ukrainian nuclear power plants, the National Security Service found illegal crypto mining equipment in a nuclear power plant in 2019.
The plant’s illegal mining equipment was found in the southern region of Ukraine. The investigations also found that such illegal devices violated a “state secret”.
What do you think of this announcement to build crypto mining data centers in nuclear power plants? Let us know in the comments below.
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