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I am planing to start mining with a close friend of mine soon. We are planing to start with 2 antminer S7 and enough solar panels to cover the energy cost. The location we are planing to start our project is in west coast of Turkey where we have a suitable place. It is also nice spot as solar panels are providing good performance. Although we still have some questions regarding timing. I wanted to have some opinions from profesinal miners on this forum. Should we wait for halving before starting this project? Numbers look promising but is there something we are missing? Any advice will be appreciated.

Here is a good calculator for estimated system output in kWh for US. You may have something similar for your country.

http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php

My 10.65 kW rooftop solar system produces anywhere between 18,112 to 19,237 kWh per year. S7 consuming 1400 W will need 12,264 kWh/year, so my system will be able to power 1.5 S7s for free. I wouldn't start a solar farm just for mining reason. As you can see, I have a fairly standard 10.65 kW system that can only power 1.5 S7s. The main reason I installed solar panels is to offset my monthly electric bill.

Might take a look at Phils thread- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1369207.0

He is someone who actually is doing a new solar operation with a good partner.   It is a pretty nice looking solar farm in that thread.

To answer your question, "NO" don't wait for the halving before you guys start mining (in case you already have the 2 S7 at your disposal), since the reward will be lesser and would be better to start right away and collect as much as rewards, you could do prior the halving. However if you still haven't bought the 2 S7, perhaps would be ideal to wait until the halving is done as most likely their prices will go down and better efficient miner come out with better chips.

okay here in the usa various states have programs about selling excess power back to the power company.

so the array I am involved with is a 60kwatt array. Forum member  buysolar is a solar contractor he is building on his property.

it is a 60 kwatt array.  We do not use batteries.  We use 20kwatts from the array and sell 40kwatts to the power company.

At the end of the month the power bill = $0

and we mine with free power on a monthly basis.

of course the upfront cost for the array and for the mining gear is a different story.

I'm curious, how much physical space does a 60 kwatt array take up? how much surface area would you need? and what does that number of panels cost?

If you have a ton of space... you can do some really cool things.  I know this will not make sense financially but Disney made a solar array in shape of Mickey's head -https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/46i2gv/this_is_what_disney_worlds_solar_farm_looks_like/ .   

Thought it was kinda neat did not think about any of these having a artistic view to it.

Retail solar panels cost roughly $1/watt, so you can estimate that a 60KW array will cost in excess of $60,000 and based on an average 100W panel size of 2'x4' cover roughly 5400 square feet.

[quote
Retail solar panels cost roughly $1/watt, so you can estimate that a 60KW array will cost in excess of $60,000 and based on an average 100W panel size of 2'x4' cover roughly 5400 square feet.
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Thanks, That's actually not as expensive as I thought. The one person I've ever known who had one of these setups said that the batteries and storage of the energy cost as much as the panels, is that still true? (he built his setup in the late 90's)

The price I mentioned above is for panels only, it does not include batteries, conductors, conduit, controllers, etc.  I think batteries are still the most expensive component of a solar system.

Per watt price is usually lot cheaper if you shop around, I bought some nice Suniva 320 W panels (1 pallet) from the seller on eBay at below wholesale price, the price was lower than my installer could source. Seller is currently selling $.65/watt 255 Watt panels and I am sure price is negotiable if buying more than 1 pallet.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/One-Pallet-6-6-KW-26-255-Watt-PV-Solar-Panels-Brand-New-Total-6630-Watts-/361370026066?hash=item5423550052:g:J0gAAOSwQYZWvqq4

That's why I specified retail cost, I'm sure you can shop around for the wholesale deals like you linked.  One thing you didn't factor in to your link and quoted price was the associated freight shipping cost, something you don't have to take into account with retail pricing.  It all comes out about the same in the end I think.

Thank you for all the feedbacks. To be honest, I am upcoming halving is not worrying me much. It is mostly bitcoin core vs bitcoin classic issue that is holding me a bit back from this project. We have good space, solar panels have sufficent production rate at this particular area and we have the money to invest. I will share our progress here. In the mean time, please let me know if you have any more ideas or tips.

Freight is cheaper than you think and usually at cost. I paid $.55/watt freight included for 255 watt panels in 2 pallets with 25 year warranty. However, they were shipped from my next door state (NV). Freight for 320 watt panels were even cheaper since they were shipped from the same state. They usually ship them by truck with other stuff so panels aren't the only merchandise paying for the trip. There is a wholesaler from AZ who was selling even cheaper panels, can't remember the name on top of my head.

Start now, don't wait. If you have the miners and te panels start as soon as you can!

I think you can connect 2 s7s to the same control computer now and they cost around 1.7[tc] in the new batch!

However, doesn't Turkey already have quite low electricity costs? Wy not exploit them?

We just planed the project so we didn`t buy the miners and panels yet. You are also right about connectiong 2 S7.
Electricity price is currently about 0,15USD in Turkey which is not too bad i guess. Althoug i think you get up to %9 discount if you make an agreement with the company with promise of using more then a certian amount.

Wow, that's a nice deal to get a discount.  Here is the US, at least in my state, it is the exact opposite: the more electricity you use each month the higher the per KW-h price is.  Mine maxes out over $0.33/KW-h at tier 5, and it's easy to get to tier 5 usage in a normal family home without any mining equipment...

That's a great price for electricity! Profit before the halving is likely (but not afterward).

Do you know what panels you will purchase?

Be good for you to check the ROI of your miner and solar panels. If you want to check that, I suggest you quater any profits now to give you a minimal amount of cost. You should also be sure to check what would be the heapest way of doing this (using a pool or solo mining, if you connect a raspberry pi then you can easily make a pool that the miner will run off). Though a raspberry pi would be useless for you, I know in Europ it costs around $40 for one of tem so it will cost a lot more in Turkey and then you need a hard drive.

Maybe also check the internet speed and its reliability. Large fluctuations have forced the miners to turn off as a precaution, also ensuring that the cooling system is adaquate.

(Also, if you purchase double the panels and get a battery you can run the miner trough the night (presumably).

I'd definitely consider calling up your electriciy company and asking their best quote for a potential 1.3KWx2(miners)x24(hours)x30(days)
1872KWh (approximately per month).

See what price they will go down to per kwh!

If I am reading right .15 cents/KW-h is not that good at all. I would be scared investing at that number currently.  You can find hosting centers easlily around 10 cent's so you save 1/3 of power costs.   

I would use a hosting center or wait till next gen personally if I'm reading right on electricity price.   Just look at difficulty changes and add higher price electricity.... hard to make good money.

For me i suggest to start mining right now and i think it will be profitable because you don't need to pay for monthly electricity bill because of solar panel.. start right now before halving ends because it will more profitable if you sell your bitcoin you already mined after halving..
If you start mining after halving every block rewards is half so that you can only mine half rewards for every mined block..

Where do you think the solar panels come from, the solar panel fairy drops them off under you pillow for free one night?

Solar power has a HUGE initial cost and you have to amortize that cost over your expected life use of the system.  You have to ROI the solar array and your miner hardwares.

That's speculation, no one knows what will happen at the halving.  Who knows, price could just as easily to the other way and everything be worth less.

Indeed. ROI on PV these days is 5-10 years depending on where you live, prices and so forth.

Also don't forget to factor in costs for transformer to convert PV output to whatever voltage your mining hardware uses. (I just checked and AntMiners use DC which is nice!).

I recommend against getting batteries to mine at night -- DC backup is still pretty expensive. Though of course with the halving coming, you'll need to run the numbers...

usually you need a veri high battery capacity compared to your solar panel capacity, i can even say 5:1 or 10:1 ratio, to cover the night

but if the sun has a great power on the morning with the same power you can cover all day and having soem for the night

Also depends how far north (or south) of the equator you are.  Plenty of people are close enough to the arctic circle that they get extended hours of daylight for a big part of the year.

That's true but the light they have is not that intense as you might think. I'd been to Finland one Summer around August and yes, really there were almost no night, but the light in the sky was like that you have one hour after sunset or even later. So it was almost dark basically. I don't think that's enough for a solar panel.