The caveat: this is a proof of concept, not policy advice. One wind farm, one year of prices, and the mining economics stay sensitive to the Bitcoin price and the 2028 halving. Paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2026.109454

Why it matters beyond Bitcoin: curtailment rises as wind build-out outpaces the grid. EirGrid has said surplus renewable generation could exceed 20% of available capacity by 2030 absent further flexibility. Flexible demand is one lever, alongside storage and interconnection. It also runs into private wires, grid access, and how renewable support schemes are designed.

With the efficient hardware and a good dispatch strategy, the 5 to 20 MW builds pay back in roughly 2.2 to 4.4 years. Turn the assumptions the other way, network hashrate growth and the 2028 halving, and the same build can fail to pay back at all. The economics are that sensitive.

The headline result: a 20 MW S21 Hydro miner raised total system revenue, the wind farm plus the miner, by 32%, from €22.2M to €29.2M, and lifted the effective capacity factor from 29% to 32%. It does this by absorbing 83% of the farm's annual dispatch-down energy. Why not just build a bigger miner? Past about 30 MW you stop soaking up wasted wind (30 MW already captures 93% of it) and start buying grid power to mine, which is a different argument. The sensible range sits around 20 to 30 MW.

Paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2026.109454 Short answer, on real 2024 Irish market data: yes, but only with efficient hardware and a sensible dispatch strategy. What we modelled: a 100 MW Irish wind farm, a miner from 0 to 90 MW, 2024 I-SEM hourly prices, two hardware generations (the old Antminer S9 and the more efficient S21 Hydro), six operating strategies, and a full six-year appraisal.

We've just published this in Energy Economics: Sarnecki, M. & Burke, N. (2026). "Bitcoin Mining as Supply-Side Flexibility in Irish Wind Energy Integration" In 2024, EirGrid dispatched down 10.1% of Ireland's available wind. In 2025, 11.4%. That is clean power we could have generated but were not able to use. Can a co-located Bitcoin miner turn some of it into revenue? Paper below 👇