The story misses what I think is truly going on: exploiting the difference between base load and peak load, keeping the generators running, but switching to mining bitcoins at off peak times.
As you probably know, the struggle with all power generation, especially renewables, is increasing/decreasing production in response to demand. If everyone suddenly turns on their air conditioners at 5pm when they get home, the grid can't increase generation fast enough.
Many renewables like solar and wind are especially problematic because they can't change at all depending upon demand. In California, sometimes instead of paying for electricity, they'll pay you to take the electricity off their hands being overgenerated by solar/wind.
Natural gas turbines have been the primary solution to peak load generation, because they can more easily be scaled up and down, depending upon the load you need to generate.
Let's target the problem from the opposite end, consumption rather than production. Let's imagine a consumer that can easily scale up/down consumption based upon availability of the grid. I can't imagine any industry where the benefits of this outweigh the costs: except bitcoin.
Power consumption of bitcoin miners can easily be adjusted millisecond by millisecond to account for changing power availability. Thus, you can run your generators at full tilt, mining bitcoin when demand is low, and turning off miners when other demand is high.
Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead only try to realize the Truth: there is no spoon. Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.
