Video: Solar-powered Bitcoin Mining farm

[RichBC]

Just looking again at the original video it's way too complicated a setup and the size of the solar panels way out of proportion to the Battery bank and the rest of the system.

The guy has an S3 that consumes 366W, the solar panels are 500W, however the setup is in the UK. 500W of panels will generate about 400KWh in a Year. So ignoring any inefficiencies that will run the miner for only 45 Days. An S3 on current difficulty makes about 85 Cents a Day so that's about $39.

Now here's the sobering bit... If you have 15 Cent Electricity (About as good as you can get in the UK) If you were to just use those 400KWh to reduce your electricity bill then that would be worth 400 x $0.15 = $60.

Rich

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[okae]

Very cool idea and that's one way to cut out the electricity use. Most turn away from mining because of the high electricity costs, me included. This brings it back to my to do lists now.

The price of solar is coming down more and more every day. It's getting a bit more attainable and cost effective to consider.

there is always the problem of the battery, in winter or in every big period of time where there is no sun, it could happen easily

i doubt the battery can last long enough in those time frame

well yes, in all those times where you don't have enough periods of sun you will have some problems, i must agree with that, but thats one of the reasons that i always recommend to dont stop using renewable energy, i mean, if you can use wind energy too, go for it.

that way you will cover all those type of bad situations, btw i understand that now not everybody have the money to invest on it or just the place where he live is not good for wind, for example...

some day i will start to build something like that

[enhu]

Complicated but certainly a profitable set up.
Using the sun to mine Bitcoin is quite a great idea. It should work in the long run as the electricity is FREE. It takes a lot of skills to do that. I wonder how much you'd spend for such set up.

[Amph]

Complicated but certainly a profitable set up.
Using the sun to mine Bitcoin is quite a great idea. It should work in the long run as the electricity is FREE. It takes a lot of skills to do that. I wonder how much you'd spend for such set up.

electricity is free but there are still cost to maintain panel batter and everything else, what if you're pannel get screwed by a storm or bad weather, you need to reinvest again, not convenient at all

the same for the battery which is not cheap, nothing is free in this world unless you find money on the street...

[enhu]

Complicated but certainly a profitable set up.
Using the sun to mine Bitcoin is quite a great idea. It should work in the long run as the electricity is FREE. It takes a lot of skills to do that. I wonder how much you'd spend for such set up.

electricity is free but there are still cost to maintain panel batter and everything else, what if you're pannel get screwed by a storm or bad weather, you need to reinvest again, not convenient at all

the same for the battery which is not cheap, nothing is free in this world unless you find money on the street...

In every business you got to have funds to save for whatever happen. I assume he has saves maybe 10% of his earnings going to its maintenance.
I assume if you set this up in your place then you gotta have a tropical weather, maybe Arizona or somewhere.

Storm is predictable anyway, so you can take the panel out whenever storm is coming. but i doubt you would while you can just tighten.

[Betwrong]

Complicated but certainly a profitable set up.
Using the sun to mine Bitcoin is quite a great idea. It should work in the long run as the electricity is FREE. It takes a lot of skills to do that. I wonder how much you'd spend for such set up.

No, it's not free. Do the math and you'll see that the price of kW⋅h in such farm will be higher than in a country where electricity is the most expensive.

[eternalgloom]

Cool but looks like a pretty small set-up, I wonder if he actually generates enough power to keep them running at night.

[RichBC]

Cool but looks like a pretty small set-up, I wonder if he actually generates enough power to keep them running at night.

On a really good day in the UK that 500W Solar setup will generate about 4KWh of power. The S3 consumes 360W, so that's about 11 Hours running, so no overnight. On a bad Day they will generate no power at all. On average he will be able to run the miner for about 3 Hours a Day.

As I said above the whole setup, Number of panels, Inverter size, Battery Bank size is all out of proportion for what it can achieve.


Rich

[Borisz]

Complicated but certainly a profitable set up.
Using the sun to mine Bitcoin is quite a great idea. It should work in the long run as the electricity is FREE. It takes a lot of skills to do that. I wonder how much you'd spend for such set up.

electricity is free but there are still cost to maintain panel batter and everything else, what if you're pannel get screwed by a storm or bad weather, you need to reinvest again, not convenient at all

the same for the battery which is not cheap, nothing is free in this world unless you find money on the street...

Solar panels are tested against storms, snow, hail and similar. So unless you are talking about a tornado, they should be fine outside.

Cool but looks like a pretty small set-up, I wonder if he actually generates enough power to keep them running at night.

On a really good day in the UK that 500W Solar setup will generate about 4KWh of power. The S3 consumes 360W, so that's about 11 Hours running, so no overnight. On a bad Day they will generate no power at all. On average he will be able to run the miner for about 3 Hours a Day.

As I said above the whole setup, Number of panels, Inverter size, Battery Bank size is all out of proportion for what it can achieve.


Rich

If you check the video again you will see that the whole setup is connected to the mains as well, hence if the battery runs low, it automatically switches to draw power from the grid. So even though the Sun may only provide x hours of operation, the miner will not stop suddenly. For a proof of concept project this is perfectly acceptable, it is cheaper than sizing up the whole system just to run a few more hours.

[RichBC]

If you check the video again you will see that the whole setup is connected to the mains as well, hence if the battery runs low, it automatically switches to draw power from the grid. So even though the Sun may only provide x hours of operation, the miner will not stop suddenly. For a proof of concept project this is perfectly acceptable, it is cheaper than sizing up the whole system just to run a few more hours.

I was not suggesting that the miner would suddenly stop. Just making the point that at best he will either be running the miner or charging the batteries, not both at once. Hence either the solar array is too small or the battery bank too large. Idealy you would want sufficient Solar power to run the miner during the day & Charge the Batteries for the Overnight Mining. Agreed on the proof of concept.

But still stick by my earlier point that you are better off to reduce your electricity bill than to Mine Bitcoin. All that said I am gathering parts for a Solar Mining Experiment as I thinks it's a great project. 

Rich

[Decoded]

Awesome.... I wish I had the space for my own little hut for my miner....

I live in an apartment... What, you want me to put it out in my hallway?!

[Bitcoininspace]

you need to go big with this type of thing otherwise you will only earn few pounds like he said in the video

but at leats it remain profitable, maybe because he sold old miners to have the new equipments

It is a neat idea.  But going big with this is just not best way as far as profit.  Look at all that equipment for 1 S3.  I consider solar and bitcoin mining two different investments.

You will make ROI much quicker from finding cheap regular electricity.  Then there is no additional equipment cost for something such as solar.  I wish solar or wind made sense but just does not large scale compared to moving to the cheap electricity.

The solar technology isn't as far yet as to be able to be worth the hassle and equipment to power a lot of miners, to be honest.

Maybe in the future with electricity probably getting more expensive (think electric vehicles), and more evolved solar powering methods/equipment might make your s5's-s7's run free on solar power and thus generate free money. That would be sweet though.