Curtailment
Curtailment is the readiness to power down when the grid asks. Mining fits that role better than any other industry, and it gets paid for it.
Why grids pay for shutdowns
A power grid lives on balance: consumption has to match generation every second. In peak hours it is cheaper for the grid to pay a large consumer for a pause than to spin up a reserve plant. Such programs are called demand response, and mining is their ideal participant.
The reason is the nature of the load. You cannot stop a factory for an hour without losses in the process, while ASICs switch off instantly and harmlessly: unmined terahashes are the entire cost of the pause. They come back online within minutes too, with no scrap, no idle shifts, no spoiled feedstock.
Participation takes different forms: a contract with the grid for interruptible capacity, an hourly rate where the farm shuts itself down in expensive hours, or an aggregator that bundles small consumers into one flexibility pool. Large US mining companies earn a noticeable share of revenue this way.
The arithmetic is simple: if being ready to switch off pays more than the coins left unmined in those hours, flexibility is profitable. In heat waves and hard frosts the price of electricity jumps severalfold, and a pause in those hours pays off even without any programs.
The short version
| What is sold | readiness to switch off on signal |
| Why mining fits | instant pause with no damage or scrap |
| Forms | grid contract, hourly rate, aggregator |
| Cost of a pause | only the unmined terahashes |
| When it pays | flexibility pays more than the lost mining |
What it looks like in practice
On an hourly rate, set a schedule: the farm shuts down in expensive hours and wakes up in cheap ones. Firmware and smart PDUs can do this.
As a small consumer, look at flexibility aggregators: grid programs will not take you alone, they will take you as a pool.
Check how your ASICs handle frequent cycles: a shutdown is routine, but thermal cycles pile up, and cooling headroom starts to matter more.
Put flexibility into the site's business plan: a megawatt farm with an interruption contract runs on different economics than one without.
An arithmetic example
In the evening peak, a kilowatt hour on an hourly rate costs three times the nighttime price. A farm that shuts down for those four hours loses their mining but saves so much that the daily total beats running around the clock. Add a contract for interruptible capacity, and the pause pays twice.
Related terms
Where to go next on the site
Numbers
Hardware
- ASIC Miner knowledge base
Questions and answers
Do frequent power cycles hurt an ASIC
A normal shutdown is fine, but thermal cycles age solder faster than steady work does. Flexibility likes good cooling and a moderate cycle rate.
Is this available at home
As an hourly rate, yes: you can shut the ASIC down in expensive hours with a plain schedule in the firmware. Grid programs for interruptible capacity start at industrial scale.
Is this the same as downclocking in a heat wave
Related, but the motive differs: throttling and summer profiles save the hardware, curtailment earns on the price of electricity.
How the terms connect
Every link in the chain is clickable. Orange marks where you are now.
Looking for an ASIC miner
The catalog holds 212 models. You can compare them by hashrate and by joules per terahash, then plug your own rate into the calculator and see what stays in your pocket.
Page written and checked by Denys Klimchuk. Updated .