French utility giant Engie is exploring the installation of battery storage systems or bitcoin mining data centers at its newly launched Assu Sol solar plant in Brazil, as it looks to offset mounting curtailment losses and improve project economics, according to Reuters reporting.
Speaking to reporters, Eduardo Sattamini, Engie’s country manager in Brazil, said the company is evaluating potential “offtakers” that could absorb excess generation from the 895-megawatt-peak facility — the largest solar project in Engie’s global portfolio.
According to Engie, the company is 23.64% owned and 33.20% controlled by the French government, and it typically focuses on low-carbon energy transition.
Located in Brazil’s northeast, Assu Sol entered full commercial operation this month but has already been impacted by grid-imposed curtailments. The restrictions, designed to stabilize Brazil’s power system, force renewable plants to scale back output when supply exceeds demand.
Curtailment has become a growing challenge for solar and wind operators in Brazil since 2023, as a wave of new renewable capacity collides with sluggish demand growth, transmission bottlenecks and rapid expansion in distributed generation, particularly rooftop solar. The result has been billions of reais in lost revenue across the sector.
To mitigate the issue, Engie is considering on-site battery storage or hosting energy-intensive data centers dedicated to bitcoin mining — a strategy that would effectively convert otherwise stranded power into a monetizable asset. Sattamini cautioned, however, that any such initiative would take years to materialize.
“That’s not coming next month,” he said. “It will take a couple of years for us to implement.”
Bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI
All this is happening as a growing number of bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI. As margins tighten and block subsidies trend toward zero, these bitcoin miners are repurposing their infrastructure to tap into the artificial intelligence boom.
Data centers originally built for ASIC-powered SHA-256 hashing are being retrofitted to host high-performance GPUs optimized for AI training and inference workloads.
Large operators are leading the charge. Bitfarms has publicly outlined plans to wind down its Bitcoin mining operations through 2026–27 and convert its Washington State facility into an AI-ready GPU-as-a-Service hub, complete with liquid-cooled Nvidia GB300 hardware backed by a $128 million upgrade deal.
Other mining firms like IREN have locked in multibillion-dollar GPU cloud agreements with major tech partners like Microsoft, signaling that traditional mining power capacity can be redeployed into stable, contracted AI compute revenue.
Also, Bitdeer Technologies has fully liquidated its corporate bitcoin treasury, reporting zero BTC held as of Feb. 20 after an eight-week drawdown from roughly 2,000 BTC at year-end 2025, including the sale of 189.8 BTC produced during the latest week and its remaining 943.1 BTC in reserves.
The company said they are moving into AI infrastructure, rolling out NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 systems in Malaysia and switching several of their sites from crypto mining to AI data centers.
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