Gridless Uses Stranded for Sustainable Bitcoin Mining in Africa

Gridless uses stranded energy for its microgrids that contain both energy generation and storage capacities to provide electricity in rural areas.

Seeing a complete reliance on the utilities’ national grids as increasingly troublesome, this Bitcoin miner has decided to develop its own microgrids together with local energy producers near rural communities to bring power  directly to rural communities.

The microgrids, as Gridless is calling them, are strategic extensions of their main grid, designed to minimize waste and inefficiencies rather than multiply standalone systems.

Research reveals that integrating Bitcoin mining into microgrids reduces renewable energy waste, lowers costs by 46%, accelerates development, and drives the adoption of cleaner, decarbonized power production.

“Over half of the people who are not connected to electricity in the world are in Africa. So what happens is that people are only able to get what they have near them, and the national grid doesn’t get to them. However, people who are building these mini-grids in these rural sites aren’t financially sustainable because there are not enough industry offtakers,” said Erik Hersman, the founder of Gridless, in a Coindesk interview.

“We come in as a geographically agnostic miner and industrial off-taker to [them]. We can buy uptaken energy and put it to work …”

To balance excess power usage, Gridless turns off the mini-miners to meet the community energy needs and pick up the backup again automatically—doing real-time demand leveling as the community turns off their power in the evening. 

Led by a CEO affectionately dubbed the “White African,” the company aims to develop mini-grids that cater to rural communities lacking traditional industrial or commercial energy consumers.

The Gridless service, which includes Bitcoin mining containers, is built on a concept of “Kifaru,” which means “Rhino” in Swahili, where containers are made using locally sourced materials. The container concept simplifies what has traditionally been a complex utility grid system by combining Whatsminer and EPIC blockchain controls to take advantage of unutilized renewable energy at remote, off-grid locations.

As with Gridless OS, the company monitors available power and controls the miners accordingly.  The GridlessOS manages this seamlessly, adapting to erratic power conditions by activating and deactivating the miners multiple times a day as needed.

Gridless claims that its Bitcoin mining operations have enabled collaboration with small independent power producers (IPPs) to monetize their surplus, stranded energy effectively. It achieves this by sharing a portion of the revenue generated from mining Bitcoin using their excess electricity. Although this revenue share far exceeds the zero income previously earned from their excess energy, it is typically lower than the rates paid by regular electricity customers.

“The more energy these [developed] countries used over time, the wealthier they became… Those people who don’t have a lot of electricity per capita have limited ability to plan for their future, make better life choices, educate themselves, and travel around the world,” explained the Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) during the Bitcoin Conference 2024 in Nashville.

 “Electricity is the greatest superpower but also the greatest limiter for humans,” he continued.

While energy-saving devices are desirable, what Africa really needs is increased energy generation—and Gridless uses stranded energy to achieve this.