On today's show, my guest is Kevin Kouba. Kevin is the Economic Development Manager at Otter Tail Power Company, they are an investor owned electric utility company that provides electricity and energy services for just over 133,000 people. They have a service territory that spans 70,000 square miles in Minnesota, South Dakota & North Dakota where their mission is to produce and deliver electricity as reliably and economically to improve the quality of life in the areas that they serve. Interestingly, Otter Tail Power is also known in the Midwest for having one of the largest bitcoin mining hosting companies as one of its largest customers.
On today’s show, Kevin and I will talk through the recent legislative sessions that include tax incentives for bitcoin mining, how Otter Tail Power is working with local economies to help them understand the bitcoin mining and data center industries to help drive economic growth, and how Otter Tail Power has identified bitcoin mining as an integral part of the future and is part of the unprecedented load growth they are experiencing. This conversation is one of my favorites and I walked away from it very excited about the future of bitcoin mining and how it will play a key role in the future of electric utility industry.