Leveraging surplus electricity: Profitability of Bitcoin mining as a national strategy in South Korea

摘要

This paper provides an empirical, operations-based assessment of routing surplus solar electricity to Bitcoin mining in Korea. We assume a public operator setting with a zero energy cost and over/under-clock scheduling within solar hours. By using the latest mining machine, BITMAIN Antminer S21 XP Hyd Bitcoin Miner, and modeling Bitcoin price with both Random Forest Regressor and Long Short-Term Memory networks, the study quantifies profitability under operational scenarios of 111,269 and 166,887 units. The findings demonstrate that surplus electricity can be transformed into a source of economic value with reducing energy loss, alleviating unresolved payments, and directly contributing to the debt reduction and financial stability of Korea Electric Power Corporation. To our knowledge, this is the first scenario-based empirical evaluation of surplus solar electricity for mining in Korea, linking surplus energy, losses, and operating expenditure. This study not only demonstrates the technical and financial feasibility of such a system but also sets a precedent for future energy policy and Bitcoin infrastructure. It introduces a new way where surplus energy becomes a valuable asset, an innovation that could redefine how nations view grid management, decentralized technologies, and energy economics.