Coinmint Migrates Plattsburgh Infrastructure to Massena for Upcoming Winter Season
Plattsburgh's 2018-2019 winter rates materially exceeded the NYISO's wholesale market rates, compelling Coinmint to migrate infrastructure to Massena
Coinmint offering all Plattsburgh staff positions in its Massena facility
Oct 24, 2019, 09:00 ET
NEW YORK, Oct. 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Coinmint, one of the largest Digital Currency Data Center firms in the world, with New York State operations through its wholly-owned subsidiary, North Country Data Center Corporation ("NCDC"), announced today it would migrate its Plattsburgh, New York infrastructure to its Massena, New York location for the 2019-2020 winter season. All Plattsburg staff members are being offered positions in the Massena facility.
Coinmint leaders cited Plattsburgh's exceptionally-high 2018-2019 winter rates – well above the New York Independent System Operator, Inc.'s ("NYISO") wholesale market rates – as the reason for the move.
"Last winter season, Plattsburgh Municipal Lighting Department ("PMLD") charged NCDC and all of its ratepayers effective KWh rates that materially exceeded the NYISO's wholesale market rates via a purchase power adjustment charge for supplemental power purchases," said Prieur Leary, Coinmint's co-founder. "When this charge was assessed, all of PMLD rate payers—not just NCDC—paid a per KWh charge that materially exceeded the wholesale market rate. We have done everything we can, including petition the Public Service Commission ("PSC") for assistance on this situation, but, to date, there is no resolution. As such, we are left with no alternative but to migrate operations for the 2019-2020 winter season or until the matter is resolved."
For example, Coinmint cited the fact that in the month of February 2019, the NYISO North Zone cleared $0.021/KWh while PMLD's effective rate to NCDC was $0.054/KWh – over 250 percent higher than the actual wholesale market rate.
Notably, Massena Electric recently withdrew from the New York Municipal Power Agency ("NYMPA")—the same agency from which PMLD purchases its supplemental power—after concluding that its customers would save between $1.4 and $2 million over the next two years, a fact relied upon by the Supreme Court in St. Lawrence County in litigation surrounding Massena Electric's withdrawal from NYMPA. As a result of Massena Electric's withdrawal from NYMPA, its customers are no longer subject to NYMPA's above-market rates.
NCDC will maintain its Plattsburgh facility throughout the 2019-2020 winter season and plans to re-start its operations there in March 2020.
"We recognize some in the Plattsburgh community have blamed our operation for pushing rates higher for everyone so, while we disagree with that assessment, we hope this seasonal migration will have a positive impact on rates for all our neighbors. In the event that doesn't happen, we trust the community will look for the real answers for these high costs," Leary continued.
About Coinmint
Coinmint designs, builds and manages large-scale, secure and sustainable data centers. Since 2016, these centers have focused on the production of efficient computational processing power (or hash rate) as well as the creation of digital asset infrastructure - principally in the form of Bitcoin and other leading digital currencies. In 2017, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, North Country Data Center Corporation, Coinmint leased the Alcoa East Facility to supply its 435 megawatt mining center, making it one of the world's largest digital currency data processor, based on capacity. Find out more at www.coinmint.io
SOURCE Coinmint
