French energy company Engie has announced plans to use some of the surplus energy generated at its largest solar park, located in Brazil, to power a Bitcoin mining system. The initiative would be part of a strategy to generate new sources of revenue for the company.
The idea is to take advantage of the energy that cannot currently be offered to the electrical system due to infrastructure limitations to power cryptocurrency mining data centers or large energy storage systems. In a conversation with journalists last week, Eduardo Sattamini, president of Engie Brasil Energia, said that the project is still in the study phase and should not come to fruition in the short term.
The plan comes in the context of the recent completion and entry into commercial operation of the Assú Sol solar complex, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, which has become the largest solar park in operation in Engie’s global portfolio.
Composed of 16 photovoltaic plants with a total capacity of 753 MW and built with an investment of around R$3.3 billion, the complex was fully commissioned in February 2026 and occupies an area of more than 2.3 thousand hectares. The energy generated by Assú Sol is enough to meet the annual consumption of a city of around 850 thousand inhabitants.
Despite the scale of the project, economic viability has been affected by so-called generation cuts, or “curtailments”, which occur when the electrical grid is unable to absorb all the energy produced. This phenomenon has become frequent in Brazil with the accelerated expansion of solar and wind farms, limited by transmission bottlenecks and less intense demand growth, generating costs and losses for renewable generators.
The Bitcoin mining project still depends on additional analysis and development of the necessary infrastructure for this type of activity. Engie has said that it will evaluate potential partners and buyers for these cargoes and will continue to study how to integrate these technologies into the Assú Sol operation over the next few years.
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In Brazil, Engie operates a fully renewable installed capacity of 15.7 GW, comprised of hydroelectric, onshore wind and solar generation assets. The group also operates 3,200 km of transmission lines and 22 substations in the country.
In December 2025, the Serra do Assuruá wind complex, located in Gentio do Ouro, in the state of Bahia, entered full commercial operation. With a capacity of 846 MW, it is the group’s largest onshore wind farm in operation in the world.
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