Hut 8 expands to Ontario with North Bay buy

By COLLIN GALLANT on October 26, 2021.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

Hut 8 Cryptocurrency unveiled a new expansion site on Monday – in a decommissioned natural gas plant in North Bay, Ont. – stating the self-powered data centre will move ahead of a delayed Alberta-based project, held up due to “supply chain constraints and COVID disruptions.”

Its Medicine Hat operations will still be the largest of now three facilities run by the company that completes cryptocurrency transactions to earn Bitcoin.

In early 2021 it announced a partnership with Validus Power, a generating company specializing in onsite systems, to create an “environmentally sensitive” power source for new bitcoin mining operation. That was to occur at an undisclosed location.

“We couldn’t be more excited to diversify our power blend across the country and to continue to take advantage of Canada’s favourable (cooler) climate,” said Hut 8 CEO Jaime Leverton in a company release. “This third location demonstrates our commitment to sustainable technological innovation as we continue to expand our operations and strive to remain an industry leading Bitcoin miner.”

The new facility was announced at a press conference Monday morning in North Bay, following a brief teaser video of machinery sent out on social media.

Statements suggest the “Valadis-owned” project would have a capacity of 37 megawatts to power machines which Hut 8 expects to take delivery on in January.

That is about half the size of the contracted power-buy in Medicine Hat, where the company currently contracts about 67 megawatts, or about one-quarter of the power capacity of the City of Medicine Hat’s power plant production. That is met by a combination of city sales and power brought in from the Alberta grid, but handled by the city’s distribution company.

A release from Validus states the North Bay project will be the first of three in Northern Ontario, and the combined budgets could be $100 million over the next two years.

The facility, which has a heat-recovery cogeneration system, was owned by independent power producer Atlantic Power that was shut down when the previous Ontario government cancelled natural gas power contracts.

Hut 8 also has an operations centre in Drumheller.

Shares in the company rose nearly 17% over the course of the day, to close trading on the TSX at an all-time high of $16.14, following a recent run-up alongside the surging price of Bitcoin.

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