It seems to me that the most aggressive use of renewable energy is actually is going to be to mine cryptocurrency.
The author of this twitter thread cites a number of sources to show that renewables account for ~78% of the energy used to mine bitcoin:
As this article in an oil-industry-focused website says,
Gazpromneft recently began a cryptocurrency mining operation based in one of its Siberian oil drilling sites, “unlocking the power of Russia’s oil and gas resources for the needs of bitcoin mining”… Instead of paying a premium to use energy from the grid, locating the cryptocurrency mining on-site at an oil field means that a steady supply of natural gas is virtually free.
Also, generation of renewable energy is independent of demand: the sun shines regardless of whether there is demand or not. Similarly, there will be unusually windy days or stormy seas.
Now, humanity hasn’t yet cracked the problem of large-scale energy storage as of 2021. Which means at times when energy from renewable sources outstrips demand, energy is simply ‘wasted’.
People quickly figured that mining cryptocurrency is an excellent way to harness that excess energy. Indeed, as the well-argued shareholder letter of the new Norwegian crypto investment company Seetee says, [PDF]
Seetee will establish mining operations that transfer stranded or intermittent electricity without stable demand locally—wind, solar, hydro power— to economic assets that can be used anywhere. Bitcoin is, in our eyes, a load-balancing economic battery, and batteries are essential to the energy transition required to reach the targets of the Paris Agreement. Our ambition is to be a valuable partner in new renewable projects.