CleanSpark Aims to Be Among Top Bitcoin Miners With Up to 500MW Expansion

Bitcoin miner CleanSpark (CLSK) announced a deal with energy technology company Lancium to secure an initial 200 megawatts (MW) at Lancium’s renewable-powered West Texas datacenters, with an option for an additional 300 MW in the future.

CleanSpark expects about 50MW of the purchased capacity to be operational by the end of this year, with the remaining 150MW to be fully online during spring 2023, the company said in a statement. At full deployment of the 200MW power capacity, the miner’s hashrate is expected to be 16 exahash per second (EH/s), or quadruple previous guidance for year-end 2022.

In comparison, Core Scientific (CORZ), the largest publicly traded bitcoin miner by hashrate, expects its year-end mining capacity to reach 40 EH/s-42 EH/s. Meanwhile, Marathon Digital (MARA) sees its hashrate at approximately 23.3 EH/s by early 2023 and Riot Blockchain (RIOT) anticipates hitting 12.8 EH/s by the end of 2022.

CleanSpark’s stock has been a sizable outperformer in 2022, gaining 30% versus declines of 22% for Core Scientific, 10% for Marathon and 1% for Riot.

“We continue to build more capacity at our own bitcoin mining facilities while we partner with colocation service providers,” said CleanSpark’s CEO Zach Bradford in the statement. “This hybrid approach helps us ensure that we always have rackspace ready to deploy new machines when they are delivered to us by the manufacturers,” he added.

Lancium and its “Clean Campuses” made for an “ideal” partner for CleanSpark, continued Bradford, whose company has a goal to use 100% renewable energy. “Lancium’s facilities are best-in-class, scalable and, importantly, draw their power from renewable-rich West Texas.”

CleanSpark currently has three operating locations that use more than 95% sustainable power sources, including solar, wind, hydro and nuclear, according to a recent presentation.

Houston-based Lancium last November raised $150 million in financing led by clean energy provider Hanwha Solutions. The company’s Clean Campus data centers will host bitcoin mining, high throughput computing and other energy intensive applications, while providing power management services.

Lancium’s proprietary “Smart Response” software allows these campuses to function as large power stations in reverse, absorbing renewable energy while providing grid ancillary services and helping manage the power flow more efficiently.