The Parliament Research Center, in a new report, analyzed the impact of cryptocurrency mining on energy imbalance in the country. According to this report, cryptocurrency mining equipment in Iran consumes between 930 to 1200 megawatts of electricity, which constitutes 14 percent of the energy shortfall during peak summer.
Electricity Consumption and Energy Imbalance
According to the conducted studies, cryptocurrency mining devices consume nearly 700 million kilowatt-hours of electricity monthly. Given the shortfall of 5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity during the warm months of the year, if the consumption of these devices were completely cut off, the number of hours the network operates without outages would increase from 5.2 percent to 33.6 percent.
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This report also examines two different methods for accurately calculating the electricity consumption of miners. In one method, Iran's share of the total processing power or hash rate of global cryptocurrencies was analyzed, while in the other method, changes in electricity network consumption during internet outages were evaluated. For example, in January 2025, when the internet was cut off nationwide, the base electricity consumption of the network decreased by about 927 megawatts.
Economic Costs and Consequences
Providing the energy required for miners imposes heavy costs on the country. Supplying electricity to these devices through thermal power plants requires the production of 8.4 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. To produce this amount of energy, approximately 2.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas or 2 billion liters of diesel must be consumed each year.
If the cost of the consumed fuel is calculated based on the imported diesel price at a minimum of 70 cents per liter, the fuel cost for cryptocurrency mining will reach about 1.5 billion dollars per year. This amount does not account for the damages caused by power outages in various industrial sectors.
The report from the Research Center also indicates that cryptocurrency mining in the residential sector is not economically viable, and high consumption leads to moving into higher tariff brackets. However, in industrial, agricultural, and commercial sectors, cryptocurrency mining is economically justified.
The Tavanir Company has so far identified 2500 megawatts of unauthorized cryptocurrency consumption in the country, and estimates suggest that about 2500 megawatts remain unidentified. In response to this situation, the Islamic Consultative Assembly has recently approved a double urgency plan to combat unauthorized cryptocurrency mining.
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