Bitcoin Forum

Hi.  I'm a newbie and have been loking at the economics of mining.  It seems that one if the biggest obstacles is the cost of power to run miners making the return on investment questionable so I have a newbie question.

What if the power to run ASIC mining hardware was free?  I happen to have a massive solar array on my roof.  The previous owner covered the entire roof of my house with solar panels but never  for reasons I can't understand, did anything other than wire them up.  I've confirmed that they work, generate massive amounts of power and I have a supply source for storage batteries that would be very economical for me.

So, the simple question is that with all things being equal, how much of a difference would it make if I could eliminate the cost of power from the equation in determine the financial return on investment in the overall cost of things.  With prices for Mining hardware coming down almost daily, is the cost of power that significant that getting it for free would make this a viable undertaking? 

Like I said, I'm a complete noob on this and just starting to get my head around everything but from all the research I've done, it seems the cost for power is one of the biggest obstacles in running a mining farm and actually making some money off this adventure.

I'd appreciate any help/advice.  Thanks in advance.

Go to coinwarz and you can calculate your profit given coin difficulty and power usage. If you can get away with free mining then why the fuck not? it sounds great. I wish I had space to install massive solar panels.

Kind of what I thought.  Based on the amount of panels, it looks like the previous owners sized it to completely live off the grid and for some unknown reason (the guy died - I bought the house from his estate) got it all wired up and terminated in a junction box but that's as far as he went. 

You are almost certain to be better off connecting the solar panels up for your own use and trying to sell the spare power back to the local power company if possible.  Even if all you can earn from selling power is say $0.05 per KWh this is likely to be your most profitable path.

Mining is not likely to be profitable.  Just for the discussion I will assuming the house has a 15kW solar system (typically 60 * 250 watt panels) and all of this is available for mining.  This would allow you to draw say 3.0kW over 24 hours with batteries for overnight power.  You would need at least 16 hours at 200 amps from 12 volt batteries.  This is at least 3200 AmpHours of 12V battery storage.  That is a lot of batteries.

Running say two Antminer S4s or similar will give you 4 terrahash.  You would currently earn about $24 per day.  And this will decline as difficulty rises.  In total you may earn say $6,000.  For this you need to buy the miners ($3,000), set up the batteries, set up any power conversion/charging electronics and run the lot.   The simplest solution for batteries may be to just put the batteries across the normal 12V supply to the miner, isolated by a diode from the normal daylight power feed.  Otherwise you will also need power converters.

I wish you luck.  

It would be interesting if you could say how much solar power you actually have available and more details on what you are planning.  

In your case, the energy is not free, since you can use it to lower your electricity bill and maybe even sell it back to the power company.

Anyway, power costs are generally small compared to the cost of the equipment.

I think BTC mining is almost dead. There is a very small chance of making profit from BTC mining. You may make a good amount of profit, if your power is free.

True that it is very hard to make profit from bitcoin mining nowadays, but that doesn't mean bitcoin mining is almost dead.

There will always be people having the most efficient hardware and cheapest costs, and they will be there mining bitcoin with profit.
Those with less efficient hardware or more expensive electricity will eventually switch down their machines, and that will help the other miners.

Electricity cost is a big factor in determining mining profit.
Take the Antminer S4 Batch 1 (https://bitmaintech.com/productDetail.htm?pid=00020140916100720380cS1tRWd00684) as an example.
It consumes about 1400W and so if you run it 24/7, the monthly power consumption would be ~1008 kWh. So if your electricity rate is $0.1 per kWh, you will need to pay $100.8 a month.

But electricity cost is not the only factor. Another big factor is the future difficulty increase rate, which is not easy to be correctly estimated.

Power will never be free, someone always must pay for it. Maybe when cold fusion will be used in every country, then power will cost close to nothing

Yes, get on your bicycle turbine and power is free.  But food is not.

If power is free, difficulty would be 10x of what it now and no body profit other then manufacturer.. so its still the same..

Even with free power, you will be hard pressed to even recoup the capital expenditure of buying any miner that's currently shipping, let alone make any profit. Bitcoin mining just isn't profitable any more except when done on a huge scale with special discounts from the manufacturers.

Far far better simply just to sell any excess electricity you have as electricity.

You are somewhat missing the poin... if power was free, as in power "in general", no one would need to work because automatization would be widespread enough for most jobs to be redundant, so an economy can't and isn't necessary when humanity has reached free power (post scarcity). Geothermal tecnology is pretty much free power.

CMIIW, OP was just saying he has a massive solar array on his roof and so he doesn't have to pay for the electricity.
It is not that someone has invented the technology to generate free energy for everyone in the world...

There already are people who are mining in regions where electricity is cheap or subsidized.

Well I know some people using their welfare money to pay the electricity while mining, does that constitute free energy? lol

Such as iceland. People set up mining "farms" to generate bitcoins at a rapid rate. Incredible.

unless u can find another purpose for the solar (light lighting a building) then dont bother imo, the mining system is starting to look weak on return unless you have a lot of power for short term.

So, don't forget to take in account the repairs u will need on solar over the years

Solar is a stupid investment right now since the installation costs are huge and there is little evidence of repair cost budgeting since its relatively modern.

Its a high investment but you eventually make roi, even though its 10 years or so. You help out with the environment!

What if power was free? What if money was free  ;D. Having free electricity from solar pannels is great, but you need to spoend a lot on equipment to get any decent money out of it.

If only it was as easy as having free electricity. It's really a shame that mining isn't really viable for beginners or for anyone to just simply start doing it now. I wonder if this will change in the future? Is it possible that cost of equipment would come down significantly for that to happen? I really hope so but I'm not sure it's possible.

even with solar panel, you have always some cost to sustain, like the battery(can't last forever), there isn't really something "free" anymore

It would be a whole diffrent ball game even pc's would still be mining.

Solar is a great investment if you know what you are doing I built my 10kw system and installed it for .60 dollars a watt normal prices are around 3-5 dollars.



Cold fusion is a pipe dream, nuclear fusion is the thing right now at MIT then are producing a system that could power the whole united states with double the electricity it produces right now. By firing 192 chemical lasers at a central point that contains hydrogen atoms. They then collect the resulting energy shed from the fusion.

It increase the chance of making profit.

The investment quality i think depends on your electrical rate.  Personally at my rate i cannot justify solar .10 kwh about.  If you pay a great amount it is possible but there is a lot of costs that i think make it hard to justify for most.

This is not true. It is possible that electricity is included in your rent (your landlord would likely make an assumption as to the average electric consumption per apartment/house and price accordingly). Although the landlord would be paying for the added electricity, the added usage would not be reflected in your monthly amount due. 

@screwUdriver
So it is true, "someone always must pay for it".
The only difference is that you are screwing your landlord.

hmmmm.. that is a great thought to ponder.  ::) ::)

Exactly.
It may be your parents, your landlord or your boss paying the bill, but in the end the power is not free.
And if you are drawing too much power, be prepare to be punished. :P

power was free, then the major issue would be keeping up with performance.

Combine cold fusion, geothermal, wind powered, and solar power and then you tell me who the fuck is going to ask for money. I will be game over for these damn scammers and their oligopolies. The only guy getting the money will be the one that really deserves it, aka the technician that knows how to repair the energy receptors/generators and what not, not some rich cunt hoarding earth's resources.

 ??? How can you say who's really deserving money?  ::)

many people  will save more money..  :o :o :o. But i think why don't we have free power for everyone?

yeah power might show some ways of being free, but people with money dont allow it.

It will be free or almost free one day...Yeah one day :)

There are countries where the cost of generation is very low (abundant wind power, much more than the demand) or the government subsidizes it. I bet bitcoin miners are having a field run in such countries.  ;D

If the whole world got along. And we all don't need money.  We can live in a star trek universe!

Ok we know this won't happen anytime soon :).  If it did electric cars would sure go up in popularity.

I some countries, you cannot sell surpluss power, back into the grid. ^Frown^

In such a situation, it would be better to use that surplus power, and use it for mining, where you can get some profit.

You also used none of your own funding, to setup the panels, which puts you, in a better situation than other people, who first have to reach ROI on capital used to setup the Panel grid. ^Grin^

I say, go for it. ^Smile^