AboutBit will open a high-tech cryptocurrency mining facility in Southwestern Indiana within the next 30 days.
The Louisville-based company, led by co-founder and CEO Stacy Griggs, will build on a 10-acre site adjacent to Merom Generating Station, a 50-year-old coal-fired power plant in Merom, Indiana, in Sullivan County along the Illinois border between Terre Haute and Vincennes. The new facility will be powered by 115 megawatts of electricity from WIN Energy, a cooperative member of Bloomington, Indiana-based Hoosier Energy, according to a news release.
The development is expected to create up to 15 new high-tech jobs, with the potential for more hires once the datacenter is online. WIN Energy CEO Tom Nowaskie says the project will benefit the local economy and member/owners of the cooperative.
“We believe there is tremendous potential for rural areas and advanced technology infrastructure such as data storage, cryptocurrency and cybersecurity facilities,” Nowaskie said in the release. “This is an example of that potential, and we look forward to exploring similar opportunities in the future. We also appreciate the continued positive collaboration and engagement with Sullivan County and community leaders.”
As I reported earlier this year, AboutBit, founded by Griggs, Wade Lewis (COO), Calvin Wells and Dan Kimball, has been acquiring natural gas assets and other inexpensive, off-grid energy sources to make power cheaper and ultimately cleaner. It already has existing mining sites in the Midwest and Western U.S., and it was projecting a revenue of $40 million in 2022 at the time of my previous article.
Phase one of the new project, which is fully backed by the state, as well as local governments and utilities, will be online in the next 30 days, the release continued. It will eventually support more than 50,000 machines, aimed at mining bitcoin and a variety of proof-of-work assets.
I have asked how much AboutBit is investing in the facility and this story could be updated.
Griggs said the scalability inherent to the project allows outside crypto miners to easily co-locate with AboutBit in the Merom facility.
“The low cost of power will be a very attractive incentive for miners looking for a base of operations,” Griggs said in the release. “We’ll be able to provide the power wholesale to miners from both the U.S. and around the world, along with the physical space and infrastructure to accommodate their hardware demands.”
In addition to easily accessible and competitively priced electricity, miners will also have the opportunity to take advantage of AboutBit’s IT expertise in the form of the company’s proprietary app, the release continued. The app will allow investors to monitor performance in real time, accurately gauging the power consumed along with the amount of crypto their machines have validated.
The news of AboutBit's new facility comes just months after Hoosier Energy transferred ownership of the Merom Generating Plant to Hallador Power Co. LLC, a subsidiary of Hallador Energy Co. (Nasdaq: HNRG). The deal, expected to close in July pending government and financial approvals, includes a 3.5-year power purchase agreement.
In 2020, Hoosier Energy announced a plan that included the retirement of Merom by May 2023. That retirement will be postponed with the new owner, saving more than 100 jobs in the process, while the power industry transitions to renewable energy.
Hallador, based in Terre Haute, also owns Sunrise Coal LLC, Indiana’s second largest coal producer.
Griggs also is CEO of El Toro, a growing IP-advertising firm and he's also a member of the 2022 Power 50 from Louisville Business First.
