Capstone Turbine to Power Cryptocurrency Mine in Louisiana

Capstone Green Energy Corp. announced Monday it had received an order for the long-term rental of one its C1000S microturbine systems.The Van Nuys green energy products manufacturer  expects to commission the system at a remote data center in Louisiana in October.

The order was received by Lone Star Power Solutions, the Capstone distributor in the southern U.S.The unnamed customer is located on an oil and gas well and will use the waste gas from those operations to power the microturbine at the data center used to handle large volume blockchain and cryptocurrency mining.The long-term rental program is part of the expansion of Capstone’s Energy-as-a-Service business and is an important element of that as rentals generate higher contribution margin rates that traditional product sales, the company said in a release.The goal is for Capstone to reach 21.1 megawatts of rented microturbines by the end of the current fiscal year in March 2022. With this latest contract, the combined rental fleet stands at 13.1 megawatts, Capstone said in the release.Chief Executive Darren Jamison said it was exciting to see a new industry taking steps to address energy use, especially in using an existing waste stream as a fuel source.“Doing so not only dramatically reduces emissions, it provides the customer with essential operational benefits like added power security and reduced maintenance costs,” Jamison said in a statement.Shares of Capstone (CGRN) closed up 16 cents, or nearly 3.9 percent, to $4.31 on the Nasdaq, on a day when that market closed up nearly 1.6 percent.