With the heavy winter storms brewing nearer and nearer, some restaurants will be staying open to provide food, shelter and warmth to people who might become affected according to a Dallas Morning News article from February 3 which says,
“I plan to be open,” June Chow, owner of Hello Dumpling in East Dallas, said Wednesday as the cold front started to roll in. “If I have power, I will serve people.”
Chow said her restaurant never lost power during last February’s storm, but the surrounding neighborhood did, and she felt it was a public service to open the restaurant’s doors. She plans to do the same thing during this storm as long as the lights stay on and the roads are drivable.
“Even if people just want to come in and use my internet and be warm, I’m OK with that,” she said.
Sammy Mandell, owner of Greenville Avenue Pizza Co., said Wednesday afternoon that he was meeting with staff at his three locations to determine if they would try to stay open or not.
“We’re waiting to see how it goes, but I’m not confident we’ll be open,” he said.
But restaurants are not the only ones making a contribution to help the community this cold season as crypto miners have already initiated stop operations to help with the energy and electricity according to a Dallas Morning News article from February 4. They report,
This time around, there’s been a year of dialogue between mining companies, the governor’s office and the state’s grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Miners met with Gov. Greg Abbott in October and said they would shut down in the event of another winter storm.
Earlier this week, Riot Blockchain sent a letter to Abbott with its plan to voluntarily shut down and had 99% of its operations powered off by 7 p.m. Wednesday.
“Last year, the miners turned off during [the] winter storm, but there were fewer bitcoin miners then and less megawatts to be taken offline,” said Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, an association representing the blockchain industry. “It still made an impact on thousands and thousands of homes. But this year, there are more and larger mining operations that can push back power and they’ve been proactive.”
After the 2021 storm, ERCOT contacted mining companies — drawn to Texas by lower energy costs — for help since they are heavy electricity users. ERCOT realized miners could assist in balancing supply and demand during extreme weather by shutting down operations and selling unused power back to the grid as part of an emergency response program.”
ERCO no longer had to ask these crypto miners to stop operations for the upcoming winter storms since they have already voluntarily stopped their operations.
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