Researchers from Witten/Herdecke University and Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg report that Bitcoin-mining entry in Texas was associated with a 19.9% increase in local nighttime wholesale electricity prices, while showing no robust daytime price effect. The paper was published online September 23, 2026, in iScience and is scheduled for the journal’s October 16 issue.
What the study found
The open-access study maps 112 operational U.S. Bitcoin-mining facilities by the end of 2024 and combines mining-site entry with high-frequency wholesale power-price data. Its difference-in-differences estimate puts the nighttime increase at about $8.10 per megawatt-hour, or 19.9%. That is a local wholesale-market estimate, not a finding that Texas household electricity bills rose 19.9%.
The authors also found miners disproportionately located in renewable-rich areas with initially lower power prices, but said the renewable capacity generally predated mining entry. Negative-price hours remained about as frequent, while high-price nighttime hours became more common. The result challenges the broad claim that mining consistently absorbs surplus renewable power during ordinary market cycles.
Curtailment still matters
ERCOT has separately created a voluntary curtailment program for large flexible customers, explicitly including Bitcoin mines. The new study says miners may reduce load during extreme scarcity, but found they did not shift consumption enough across ordinary price cycles to offset the nighttime effect. BitcoinVersus.Tech recently covered Texas’s review of 4CP rules for miners, earlier heatwave curtailment by Bitcoin miners, and new Texas permitting pressure on large computing loads.
What remains unclear
The analysis measures historical local wholesale-price effects through the mining buildout captured in its dataset. It does not establish the same effect for every Texas mine, every hour, or future market conditions. Changes in miner efficiency, curtailment software, transmission capacity and ERCOT rules could alter the relationship.
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