French utility large Engie is exploring the set up of battery storage programs or bitcoin mining knowledge facilities at its newly launched Assu Sol photo voltaic plant in Brazil, because it seems to offset mounting curtailment losses and enhance venture economics, based on Reuters reporting.
Chatting with reporters, Eduardo Sattamini, Engie’s nation supervisor in Brazil, mentioned the corporate is evaluating potential “offtakers” that might take up extra era from the 895-megawatt-peak facility — the most important photo voltaic venture in Engie’s international portfolio.
In accordance with Engie, the corporate is 23.64% owned and 33.20% managed by the French authorities, and it usually focuses on low-carbon power transition.
Positioned in Brazil’s northeast, Assu Sol entered full business operation this month however has already been impacted by grid-imposed curtailments. The restrictions, designed to stabilize Brazil’s energy system, pressure renewable vegetation to reduce output when provide exceeds demand.
Curtailment has change into a rising problem for photo voltaic and wind operators in Brazil since 2023, as a wave of recent renewable capability collides with sluggish demand progress, transmission bottlenecks and speedy enlargement in distributed era, notably rooftop photo voltaic. The consequence has been billions of reais in misplaced income throughout the sector.
To mitigate the problem, Engie is contemplating on-site battery storage or internet hosting energy-intensive knowledge facilities devoted to bitcoin mining — a technique that will successfully convert in any other case stranded energy right into a monetizable asset. Sattamini cautioned, nevertheless, that any such initiative would take years to materialize.
“That’s not coming subsequent month,” he mentioned. “It would take a few years for us to implement.”
Bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI
All that is taking place as a rising variety of bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI. As margins tighten and block subsidies development towards zero, these bitcoin miners are repurposing their infrastructure to faucet into the substitute intelligence increase.
Information facilities initially constructed for ASIC-powered SHA-256 hashing are being retrofitted to host high-performance GPUs optimized for AI coaching and inference workloads.
Giant operators are main the cost. Bitfarms has publicly outlined plans to wind down its Bitcoin mining operations by means of 2026–27 and convert its Washington State facility into an AI-ready GPU-as-a-Service hub, full with liquid-cooled Nvidia GB300 {hardware} backed by a $128 million improve deal.
Different mining corporations like IREN have locked in multibillion-dollar GPU cloud agreements with main tech companions like Microsoft, signaling that conventional mining energy capability could be redeployed into steady, contracted AI compute income.
Additionally, Bitdeer Applied sciences has totally liquidated its company bitcoin treasury, reporting zero BTC held as of Feb. 20 after an eight-week drawdown from roughly 2,000 BTC at year-end 2025, together with the sale of 189.8 BTC produced throughout the newest week and its remaining 943.1 BTC in reserves.
The corporate mentioned they’re transferring into AI infrastructure, rolling out NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 programs in Malaysia and switching a number of of their websites from crypto mining to AI knowledge facilities.
