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Living in landscape that's essentially a bowl having sides on the east, south and west is a bummer but if I cut down and sell the hardwood clearing most of the center I could put a sizable solar farm on my north side and the wood sale might pay a good chunk of cash. 

Integrating solar energy with the power utility is a bear and they don't like it down here in rural Georgia, it cutting into their profits and all.  But, driving my 12vdc miners would seem ideal.  That with 12 volt marine batteries would work immediately and could be done without involving the power utility.  As it is my electric bill is 2½ times what it was this time in 2012.

So, would group buys of solar panels and marine batteries be allowed in this forum?

I can't see why not.  I've thought about solar panels myself, not necessarily in regards to mining gear but just my general electric usage as well.  The expense made ROI too far off for me to ever want to make the leap though.

If you have a lead on a wholesale dealer who can offer a significant discount, I am sure there are many who would show interest.  As the increased centralization of mining is making it harder and harder for the hobby miner at home to compete, and the cost of solar panels slowly falls, I suspect it will increasingly become an investment home miners would be interested in making.

Hoping an active miner group sales person would branch out as fewer miners are getting sold. 

Getting a solar system up and running exclusively for mining and not connected to the power grid would be a start to eventually getting it onto the grid.

Do you really want to commit to losing money for the next 5 years in the hope that you may make a tiny profit in the distant future?

You can buy solar panels from China pretty cheaply - I can only say for the EU that import (taxes and duties) is the problem, don't know about the USA.

If you'd like I can get you very inexpensive solar panels delivered to your house in Georgia that are fully compliant with all US rules and regulations for grid interconnection complete with a 20 year manufacturers warranty for under $1 a watt. I also accept bitcoin for solar panels. One of the oldest solar pv companies on the east coast http://www.ecologicalsystems.biz/ would be the ones providing the solar panels. Their credentials are impeccable so you don't need to worry about any scams with them.

That's a really good price!

But let's compare it to hosting. You say about $1000 for 1kw system. Georgia gets about 1700 kwh per year, but you'll lost some efficiency for battery, etc., so let's say 1500 kwh, or roughly 2 months of power. You could host the miners at a bitcoin hosting facility for $180 for 2 months, much less if you agree to longer terms.

You need to run the miners for more than 5.5 years without downtime to break even compared to a hosting facility. Good luck with that.

also i sale used and new solar panels from bankruptcy company.all solar panel is in warehouse in germany.sale only for EU.
Price from 150 euro kwp to 400 euro kwp. + mwst
minimal bay one palet to 1mw depende from court,insurance company.
i now wait new list of available panels.
Also sale server PSU 2000-2500W plug and play for PCIe conector
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2dli5wimt6zt0rs/2015-02-08%2015.34.36.jpg?dl=0

You make some great points. But there are other benefits to consider too. There's a 30% federal tax credit in the US for solar panels as well as a super accelerated depreciation table, if he's able to use these incentives it will improve his ROI substantially. Also the panels and the electricity they produce can always be used for other purposes besides mining.  

edit: I also forgot to mention, that once your solar panels have paid for themselves, your energy costs drop to 0, at which point cost per kilowatt hour becomes irrelevant, and your only remaining consideration is the earnings per kilowatt hour produced.

Shows us the spreadsheet for a typical small farm so we can actually see the numbers.

I think you would be hard pressed given current and or future BTC prices to make a reasonable solar only mining operation viable. But show us the numbers to contrary.

Where is this farm going?

There are a lot of variables in the question you're asking. The answer is going to vary by a substantial amount from state to state and country to country.  For instance in my area, if you connect to the public grid, you get the electricity from the solar worth ~$0.17kwh + an additional incentive for clean energy of ~$0.10 to ~$0.2kwh + federal tax credits and depreciation which pay for ~50% of the total system price. So people in my state will typically get between 12% and 30% ROI annually depending on the exact components used and the buyers ability to use the federal incentives. My state also has some of the strictest energy standards on the planet, as well as a number of additional bureaucracies to deal with, So the up front cost of a solar system in my state is substantially higher than in other places.

    I know buysolar he is on my trust list because I know him and helped him setup a sp20e , some s-3's.
  He runs a solar company and is legit. He knows the  ins and outs of his state laws and federal laws as applied to solar energy.

Hey buysolar what's up?

Thank you for the kind words. I'm just enjoying the snow from the comfort of my miner heated solar powered home. I liked the poll you ran philipma1957, sorry it got cut short.
Yes I designed and installed the first privately owned wind and solar powered electric generators that were allowed to be tied into the public utility grid in my state, which last time I checked was the 2nd largest solar market in the US. I've also done a bunch of other energy utilization projects over the years. 
If anyone is really interested in setting up an off grid or on grid mining system utilizing the most cost effective energy processes currently available, I'd be happy to consult. But what I'd really love to coordinate is an energy deployment maximization plan for one of these larger scale deployment facilities, they are dropping the ball on duel purposing their facilities. Bitfury, Friedcat, Bitmaintech, Spondoolies, KnC... they've made great products, but they are showing their lack of depth on their larger scale mining deployments. It's only a matter of time before an entity steps into the fray with a more comprehensive methodology. All of these entities which are deploying miner facilities that live and die based on the cost of energy and the price of bitcoin at any given moment just haven't figured it out yet. I'd love to help them unhinge from the temporal whims of the bitcoin market space in a way that enables them to enhance the services they are providing to the general community and increases their competitive edge. If large scale deployments truly want to maximize the value of their participation in the bitcoin mining market space.... they will need a more comprehensive philosophy.

yeah once you payoff the panels your power is free.  Kind of like once you pay off a psu it is free.  So if you have a psu like an evga 1300 g2 with a 10 year warranty after a year  the next 9 are free.  If you have a solar panel with a 20 year warranty  three years to pay it off and 17 years free power.

Any colder country can use the heat  during the winter to warm the home the entire winter.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/electrodacus/120a-solar-bms-charger-lifepo4li-ion-offgridrv-wit

Need a good battery system and battery manager? Then check this kickstarter out.


https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/003/265/403/acde01d8aa0060d685659a9afc2ed71b_original.png?v=1423608557&w=700&h=&fit=max&auto=format&lossless=true&s=3ad875589f35571d1be1d1513ab45e3b

I would be down to get a few panels if the price was at wholesale discount.  ;)

Just let me know how many watts you want and where you want them sent.

May group bay 112 kwp panel

1 kw solar panel 110 euro + MWST with transport to Croatia
next week delivery

Might be able to get broken/defective/shattered panels without any warranty or guarantees for that price. But my local salvage company pays more for broken solar panels than that, so I doubt anyone in the US would ship panels to you at that price.
You might be able to obtain individual solar cells and put them together yourself, for close to that price? Might be a fun project, lot of work though, stringing the cells and encasing them properly. I stopped doing that when the price dropped below $4/watt. The large scale manufacturers just make the finished product so much better than a hobbyist can achieve. There is a lot of details that go into a finished solar panel, even the glass is manufactured with special anti reflective glazing.

USA is exspensive. market for solar this panel is not broken/defective/shattered panels this is panel year production 2010 .bankruptcy company.used in 8 solar field in germany. and i totally bay-paid and sold 168 kw
and have group reservation for another 168 kw but,no more panels.
in 2 days i easy sold 168 kw http://www.e-vozila.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5562

 warranty or guarantees is for pussy. who don't risk don't make profit.

If the panels are working to specification, it sounds like an amazing deal. Why did the solar fields go bankrupt? At that price offering I'm amazed no one stepped in to buy the facility and keep it running. There must be a reason.

Power storage. You need batteries and potentially solar tracking to make such a system a truly 24 hour solution for powering miners or homes unless it is on grid or grid tie solution.

LiFePo4 is likely a great solution but the costs of battery storage at the outset of a project is difficult and very costly.

MPPT's are not cost effective?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKrh9tdXDX8

It's a good video but It's a bit apples and oranges. It only applies to a purely DC to DC off grid environment, and he clarifies that in his video as well.

As for the field in Germany, I seriously doubt it was a power storage issue that caused the bankruptcy, they have some of the best net metering rules on the planet. 

I think a group buy like this would be really cool, except i don't live in America... I think if someone could get these at good prices they would be a great investment log term that would work well with mining hardware.

It is interesting to learn about the experience people had buying solar panels together. Logically they should be offered lower prices; however I am not confident that every company will offer such opportunity. When we installed the PV panels on our house, our neighbors didn’t believe that this alternative source of energy works. So we just made an order on the website http://solarpanelscompany.com/ (http://solarpanelscompany.com/). Now there is no use to explain the benefits, though the prices differ a lot.

Ok, I am in for 30kw.