Two facilities both quote $0.06/kWh. One will quietly outperform the other by twenty percent a year. The difference is everything around the kilowatt-hour price.
The headline rate matters, but so does what's behind it. Is the rate fixed-term or floating with the grid? Hydro and gas-fired captive generation tend to be stable; merchant grid positions can spike. Ask what happens at contract renewal, whether there's a demand charge, and whether the facility participates in curtailment programs — in Texas ERCOT, demand-response revenue is real, but you should know how those economics are shared before signing, not after.
Your machines are physical assets sitting in someone else's country. Rank locations by contract enforceability, customs predictability, currency repatriation, and history of policy reversals. A spectacular power price under an unstable regime is an unpriced risk. This is why we structure client contracts under UAE jurisdiction even when hardware sits in Ethiopia or the US — the legal wrapper travels with you.
Sophisticated miners stopped picking one location years ago — they diversify across two or three uncorrelated jurisdictions, exactly like an investment portfolio. Our own capacity spans Ethiopia ($0.055), the UAE ($0.06), the USA ($0.065) and Oman precisely so that no single grid, regulator or government defines client risk. Cheapest is a strategy; resilient is a better one.