> All that energy all this time just not having enough demand to justify harnessing, till now. There was demand for that power. The dams were always running at

> All that energy all this time just not having enough demand to justify harnessing, till now. There was demand for that power. The dams were always running at full utilization. Most of that demand was simply outside the local area and the electricity was being exported. As stated by the article itself in the quote I just gave you (80% of the 3000 megawatts were exported). Those exports lead to reduced fossil fuel usage elsewhere because they allow other people to shut down fossil fuel plants. And the article directly states that now exports are going to have to be reduced now that miners are using that power. Which means in other parts of the country they are going to have to spin up new power plants (or extend the lifetime of fossil fuel plants). The reason why you got confused over the 200 megawatts thing is because that's only one of three local utilities drawing power from the dams. Presumably all three of those added together consume ~600 megawatts, (20% of the total power available).