Efforts to alleviate pressure on the national power grid by closing cryptocurrency mining centers have increased with the arrival of the hot summer and peak consumption season.
According to Iran Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution Company (Tavanir), 109 illegal crypto farms were found and closed last week. Equipment seized from these centers had a collective consumption of 1,345 kilowatts.
In July 2019 the government said it would accept cryptomining as a legal industry. Miners were required to acquire license from the Ministry of Industries and pay their electricity bills based on export rates.
However, illegal farms have cropped up with increasing speed using subsidized electricity because they must pay much higher tariffs if they operate with a permit.
When power shortages increased last summer, Tavanir started shutting illegal cryptomining units. When found the utility confiscates illegal miners' equipment and their electricity is cut.
They also must pay for damages to the national grid that for years has struggled to meet demand that has been rising, especially in the hot summer.
According to IRNA, whistleblowers accounted for 43% of the detections of unauthorized cryptomining farms last week, showing considerable increase compared with the previous months.
Tavanir on-site inspections resulted in 32% of the detections and the remaining were found by other methods such as analyzing consumption records of subscribers.
Razavi Khorasan Province accounted for the largest portion of detections last week, followed by Tehran Province, Khuzestan, Isfahan and East Azarbaijan provinces.
According to Tavanir, more than 7,200 unauthorized cryptomining centers have been detected and closed since 2020.
Recently, Tavanir officials said that the government was drafting new measures to further reduce unauthorized cryptomining.
According to Mohammad Khodadadi, the official in charge of supplying power to legal cryptomining centers at Tavanir, the new plan calls for prison terms for illegal miners caught for the second time.
