Even in an aggregated setup (pool of miners)?  I would imaging that a managed pool of 1000 1TH/s rigs would be more profitable as a whole than a pool where all those systems ran with no regard for electricity rates or difficulty.

The difficulty variable is tough for me since most of these concepts behind BC are fairly new.  As i understand it the problem is multi-fold;
1. New more powerful systems coming into the market (if I understand correctly, that curve is getting less steep)
2. Commercial operators coming online with massive amounts of hashing power.
3. The code itself?  Or does that go more to BC per block.  (something about 2016)

If I understand the challenge correctly, the "life" of a rig could be extended using an APP that turns it on and off based on difficulty.  Am I misunderstanding "difficulty"?

Additionally, I would assume that most homeowners would not want to purchase the rigs (some would), but I would propose that unused rigs (those in an area where it's no longer profitable) are leased to the homeowner.  In this setup both the hardware owner and the "host" would share in the profits generated.

The beauty of the loans being offered is that they are not property secured (mortgage money), they are secured by the PV systems themselves.  What is the cost of PV in The Netherlands?  Installed cost here ranges between $2.50/w to $3.50/w roughly.

I like this community so, I'm going to kind of just put the idea out there and hopefully someone can make something of it or at least give me an idea of what may be wrong with it....  It requires just a few pieces.

1.  An overproducing solar PV system.
2.  A home energy monitor that monitors PV production and demand load (see: http://store.energy-aware.com/products-neurio.html)
3.  A high efficiency mining rig.
4.  A custom APP (https://ifttt.com/wtf) where the rig is turned on and off based off of hash rates (if i understand correctly these are measure of how profitable it is to mine at any given time) and measured over production.  I.E.  IF hash rate below X AND daily kWh overproduction above 5 kWh THEN turn rig on for 5 hours (assuming rig demands 1 kWh).
5.  A mining "pool" comprised of homeowners with the above setup.

This could be huge.  For example, there are well over 100,000 solar net metered customers in California alone.  However, the long term viability of solar has been demonstrated...BC is a different story.

I'm reading about the extremely high electricity rates in The Netherlands.

I only focus on the AZ and CA markets.  85+% of people who install solar do so using a lease or a loan.  They cash flow right away and pay nothing out of pocket.  Basically, people just need a 700 credit score and a suitable roof.  I think that these financiers should be looking to The Netherlands. lol

Thanks.  I'll take a look at that calculator.  

As far as interest goes, there is definitely a segment of people with solar that have some basic knowledge and interest in BC.  However, the vast majority of people are interested if it's a plug and play offering with no risk $$ involved.

Contacting the homeowners with over producing PV systems is easy enough.  

Where I see a problem is with ROI.

I used a calculator (http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/) and changed the following variables:
1000 TH/s hash rate
$0.10 kWh energy cost
600,000 w consumption
12 month time frame
3,000,000 hardware cost.

However, i'm reading about people shutting down their rigs because of the current valuation of bitcoins.  That leads me to believe that the 12 month net revenue projection of 12,963,681.23 USD is WAYYYYYYY off.

Let's assume for a moment that the cost to find 1000 homeowners willing to host the 1 TH/s systems and the cost to ship and install is low...let's call it variable X, what am I missing here?  Why do the numbers calculated on bitcoinx.com seem to differ so wildly from profitability reports from miners on this board?

 

Hi.  I need some experienced mining folks to give me some feedback.  I work for one of the largest residential solar installers in Arizona and we are also in California.  Our cash payment customers are getting their electricity between $0.04 and $0.06/kWh.  There's been a trend in solar to "oversize" systems by 20-30%.  By this i mean, if a customer is using 10,000 kWh/yr they may purchase a system that's generating between 12,000 and 13,000 kWh/yr.  Personally, I don't like to oversize systems because the "extra" electricity is sold back to the utility company at the end of the year at "wholesale" rates (read: less than what they are paying for the electricity).  It occurred to me that bitcoin mining may be a great way to go for some of these homeowners.  For example:  Over the course of a year the PV system overproduces 2,000 kWh of electricity.  As opposed to selling that electricity back to the utility company at say $0.04/kWh it may be better to drop off a "bit coin rig" at the customers house that's capable of using up the extra 2,000 kWh in the course of say a week.

Questions:
Is it feasible to install a rig of that size at someones home?
How many coins would it likely mint?
From your experience mining bitcoins would profit sharing with the home owner be preferable to say $0.07/ kWh?
Considering hardware costs, is this even a worthwhile endeavor?