Crypto mining company loses bid to force BC Hydro to provide power

Feb 5, 2024 | 3:25 PM

VANCOUVER — A cryptocurrency mining company has lost a bid to force BC Hydro to provide the vast amounts of power needed for its operations, upholding the provincial government’s right to pause power connections for new crypto miners.  

Conifex Timber Inc., a forestry company that branched out into cryptocurrency mining, had gone to the B.C. Supreme Court to have the policy declared invalid.

But Justice Michael Tammen says in a ruling issued Friday that the government’s move in December 2022 to pause new connections for cryptocurrency mining for 18 months was “reasonable” and not “unduly discriminatory.”

BC Hydro CEO Christopher O’Riley had told the court in an affidavit that the data centres proposed by Conifex would have consumed 2.5 million megawatt-hours of electricity each year.