Yes electric companies can charge whatever the market will bare. My example assumed someone generates their own electricity, and doesn't pay an electric company for the electricity.

If you have access to fast running stream or river, you can average under 3cents per kwh for micro hydro systems.
Hydro is one of the cheapest sources of energy, but most people do not have a location with adequate water resource for hydro power.

There is a cost to entry in terms of bitcoin mining equipment, Buying S1's, S2's, S3's and other low cost equipment that is being liquidated due to energy cost of running the equipment will be the cheapest entry point in the short term.
Typically in a net metered situation, the utility company will pay you the wholesale rate for the energy produced if you don't use it with in 12months of generating it. In NJ the wholesale rate is ~3.5cents/kwh. If your net metering gives 0 buy back for unused net metered energy... then you absolutely want to do something with the solar energy that is being wasted and bitcoin mining may be a good choice. If your net metering pays you wholesale for unused solar energy of 3.5cents/kwh then that's probably about $275 a month for your size system versus the ~$500 to $3k/month you would make mining at the current complexity and price of bitcoin.
I've been mining with solar energy for a few years now. I also have substantial experience in the solar space and have designed and installed many megawatts of grid tied and off grid solar systems. I currently have 60kw of solar online at my own site and will be bringing another 40kw of solar online over the next 6months.  Feel free to pm me if you're looking to have a team come out and set up a mining system for you.

Doesn't seem right not being able to buy directly with BTC. I emailed them and told them I was a trying to buy a shirt to support a project but I didn't see bitcoin as a payment option and would like to know when they were going to add it to the payment options.

How do I pay for the shirt with BTC?

Ahh yes, I didn't see the reply before. Thank you.

I haven't heard back from you yet on my last pm asking if you were going to complete my last order?

Hello Amazon4u,

Sent you a pm about the order I'm still waiting on from a couple weeks ago. Looking for an update.

thanks

philipma1957 currently does escrow for goods only, no gift card transactions. His escrow service for goods has been great.

Amazon4u is out of the country and hasn't been able to complete my second order yet. Looking forward to amazon4u's return this week and receiving my wish list #2.   

Yes I can get you solar panels for about $1/watt including shipping here in N. America, with at least a 20 year manufacturers warranty. The 1500watt modules are a bit bigger than most people can comfortably carry. 180watts to 400watts is what most prefer, for ease of handling.

Edit: Forgot to mention that you can buy the solar panels with bitcoin

Wow this is so exciting. Looks like I might actually get to upgrade the rest of my old S1's!! Can't wait. These days I only run them when it is cold outside. You guys are awesome. So much fun coming down the pike. I had a great time upgrading a couple of my S1's to S3's with my daughter (she got a big kick out of taking everything apart and putting it all back together and seeing it work) but then bitmain discontinued sales of the upgrade kit the second I got the two upgrade kits I ordered working properly. Really looking forward to sitting down with my kid again and upgrading the other couple dozen S1's I have left.   
Godspeed to you all!!!

I used all grade A tier 1 solar products on my system. You can save money in the short term by going with used or lower quality products or products that have less or no warranty. 
The inverters are manufactured by SMA are UL listed and come with a 10 year manufacturers warranty that can be extended to 20 years.
The solar panels, I'm using a bunch of different brands with wattages between 230watts per panel and 400watts per panel. But they are all UL listed and come with a manufacturers warranty of at least 20years.
For the solar mounting rack I used 2 different types a 1)custom rack I designed 20 years ago and 2)unirac   
The rest of the components are mostly standard off the shelf components available at your local electrical store.

It's a grid tied system, so I have no trouble mining 24/7. But I do have a battery back up unit as well (although I don't include the battery back up in my cost analyses because it's optional and just in case shtf).

Conservatively I expect about 24,000 kwh/yr out of the 20kw system in my area.

I have 20,000 watts (20kw) of solar power online currently. I'm bringing another 20kw online in the next 2 months (already installed the panels just need to hook up the inverters) and another 60kw over the next 12 months. My cost per kw installed is about $1.5/watt for grid connected solar system after all the state and federal incentives. Cost of electricity in my area is about 16cents/kwh

I mine with solar energy. Works well for me. Lifecycle cost should be around 4.5cents per kwh where I live.

Received everything as agreed. Thanks Amazon4u

Hi Amazon4u,

Sorry to see you facing so much criticism, I think you've done a great job answering peoples questions. I know how tough it can be repeating the same stuff over and over again.

I'm sending you a pm with my wish list link for several items totaling $232.27 x 0.75 = $174.2025  = 1.4312 btc at the time of this post.

Look forward to receiving everything. thanks.

They are under $200 now.

Looks like a great project. Will be so much fun rebuilding my S1's with your kits when they become available.