Cheapest Electric Rates Anywhere... .5 BTC BOUNTY

[deathcode]

It would be a logistics nightmare plus not to mentions you'll have to export the technology to Venezuela because I'm sure GPUs are way more expensive there... to start...how many GPUs / GHash are we talking about here?

My minimum setup is 30 rigs of 4x7950 each. As the marginal cost for each additional rig is $0 (just a linear increase of electricity), I hope to have many, many more. I'll probably create a thread about my plan after I vet it out with some business dudes in the next week or so and get rid of my noob-status.

 You need to determine the wattage you'll need, the kWh consumption, the cooling requirements (natural/artificial and winter/summer) the amount of phases you'll need (no idea about amperage and how much each phase supports).
Also, difficulty increase overtime, forecasting in the BTC value (those last two factors are an unknown) and ultimately, ROI and profit.

[mantis_tobbogan]

You need to determine the wattage you'll need, the kWh consumption, the cooling requirements (natural/artificial and winter/summer) the amount of phases you'll need (no idea about amperage and how much each phase supports).
Also, difficulty increase overtime, forecasting in the BTC value (those last two factors are an unknown) and ultimately, ROI and profit.

I've already done all that and my last big hurdle is the electricity. With my planned minimum setup, I will be pulling a very liberal 1000 kwh/day.

[Twerka]

In Buenos Aires it's 0,07 dollar kWh, but the goverment helps to pay for it (to everybody) and the final price is: 0,0088 kWh.
Anyway, I'm sure you are not coming to BsAs 

Then again, you need to buy the GPUs overseas and entering them to Argentina... good luck!
And then make sure you don't get robbed, kidnapped, assaulted, or the government decides to pull some trick to prevent computers to connect to the bitcoin network (unlikely) but with that president, you never know...!

I think our president support bitcoin, she hates banks.  It's sad to see the bad publicity the countries under protectionism economies countries have on the world. 

Anyway, you you are right, the hardware here is very very expensive.

[deathcode]

In Buenos Aires it's 0,07 dollar kWh, but the goverment helps to pay for it (to everybody) and the final price is: 0,0088 kWh.
Anyway, I'm sure you are not coming to BsAs 

Then again, you need to buy the GPUs overseas and entering them to Argentina... good luck!
And then make sure you don't get robbed, kidnapped, assaulted, or the government decides to pull some trick to prevent computers to connect to the bitcoin network (unlikely) but with that president, you never know...!

I think our president support bitcoin, she hates banks.  It's sad to see the bad publicity the countries under protectionism economies countries have on the world. 

Anyway, you you are right, the hardware here is very very expensive.

Argentineans (including the president) love dollars and pesos are worth $0.
I'm not sure how much love the president will have for bitcoins if Argentineans find a way to buy bitcoins or mine them to get dollars in the black market (yes, not the blue market) meaning mining them and exchange them for dollars overseas and getting them into the country, or buying bitcoins with pesos (highly unlikely overseas) but anyways this is not a conversation about the economy there.

[Lethos]

deatcode has got the idea. I know that an 'all inclusive utilities' fee will not cover the amount of power I am requiring, I'm going to have to pay for it some how. Also, there is an issue of getting that much power in the first place, as it will have to be a specialized circuit. I can't just plug these into the walls of any old place and run them. I'm looking into renting a space in a data center. As far as the .0065 figure, it was something I head once in a conversation, so it might not be realistic. Running the numbers I am comfortable paying .05, though less is always more. I couldn't just rent some place near Niagra, it would have to be able to provide me with the massive amount of wattage I need, but I will look into the location at .03~ sounds very, very appealing.

The .5 BTC bounty stands to anyone who points me in the cheapest direction and I happen to follow through with it. My plan should flesh-out in the next few weeks and once I sign the lease I will be sure to reward you.

Don't bother looking in England or the UK in general, it's expensive as hell here.
I'm know you didn't ask for that, but you can tick it off your list.

You are right, places near hydro dams do get really cheap electricity, sadly the only friend who could help with quotes in that example, lives in Las vegas and building a mining farm there would be silly. Far too hot, so you'd just end up spending more money on cooling.

I have heard very good rates in a few select places in Europe, Norway especially, it's so cold so they don't really have to worry about cooling and they have hydro dams up there. Could ask a contact out there if you really interested. Only problem is I'm not very fluent in the language.

Yes, I am very willing to explore all options (though I will let Argentina slide this time  ) and would be grateful if you would follow through and get me in touch with your contacts.

Mantis, my contact advised a few things. Try and find a Datacenter located in the south on Norway, like Oslo, electricity prices are a bit cheaper there. Many of the Datacenters really don't care how much electricity you use, some are bold enough to say free and/or include a lot. They charge more by their extra's like bandwidth, backup's and space it takes up.
Optimise for space, fit as many GPU's into a server sized rack unit as you can. Trust me, they aren't going to over heat.

Think the equivalent price in Norway for electricity would be 2.5 - 3 cents/kWh. So it's cheap and cold there. But being a Datacenter you mostly paying for the space and having it looked after.

Not many places have prices online, so shopping around takes a while (ie. sending emails for quotes).
Serve the world (in Oslo, Norway) does have their prices online. So they likely not be the cheapest.
http://servetheworld.net/produkter/co-location-server-rack

A full rack, which can handle in the region of 3000+ Watts. (enough space for ~10 servers - full of GPU's)
That would be $2000-3000 a month if I understand the table right.

However there is a lot of things included you just don't need. I know extra feeds and power is pretty cheap so if all you need is a basic setup inside, you could tell them that and they might consider reducing the price a lot.

He says there is a lot of Datacenters in Oslo, so if you want good price for a cabinet or full rack, and all you need is a basic connection and cheap electricity, your best bet is to send them an email for a quote.

Goodluck, if I had a larger client base in Europe, as a server admin, I'd so use them. A lot cheaper than anything else I'd have to consider.

[nanaimogold]

I'm thinking Ocean Falls BC.

They have an underused hydroelectric plant run by a small company looking for commercial users of the power. The town is mostly empty buildings that could be had for next to nothing.

It's isolated, but the internet connects us all and who wouldn't want to live in such a (wet) paradise.

I'm currently buying bitcoin with LR for less than gox price - no fees!

fully automatic exchange:
https://www.nanaimogold.com/bitcoin.php

[mantis_tobbogan]

I'm starting to become pretty set that I'm going to open shop in a data center as they have the security, electricity needs, and housing for what I need. I've been looking into Fortune Data Centers.

[mislevi]

Move to an all bills paid apartment, install racks/gpus, profit!

+1  Uni residences, heating all day to the point you need to open the windows in winter and all the mining you want (which makes more heat more windows open)

[SideWinderGX]

I live in Syracuse NY, electric prices through Solvay electric (Solvay is a town/suburb of Syracuse) are 3 cents per kwh (link for proof: http://www.nypa.gov/partners/solvay.htm bottom of page).

National grid/nimo sucks, they are 3x/4x as expensive.

Cheap electricity and the sudden rise in bitcoin prices (sure they might go down...but they'll go back up assuredly) are why I'm here.

Good luck finding a place!

[iCEBREAKER]

I'm looking into setting up a GPU farm. Please hold off on the criticism and death threats, I've already made up my mind. My only obstacle is finding a place with very cheap electric rates as I will be pulling some serious wattage, think upwards of 1000 kwh / day. I've heard of electric rates being as low at $.0065 near hydro electric dams, however I can't find much online. If anyone points me in the direction to find such cheap electric rates at a reasonable locale I will give them a bounty of .5 BTC, but any other help is encouraged as well

Good for you!  The market is demanding more Scrypt power than the available supply.

Also take the climate and politics into account.  You want to be somewhere cold as hell, but with good internet and stable government.

Take a look at Quebec and BC.  Their gold mines get cheap power, plus it's freezing most of the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Canada

The socialists in Quebec might even give you a grant to bring some jobs (LOL  ).

And you could charge for the heat you generate, or donate it to a school/orphanage/old folks' home.   

[mantis_tobbogan]

I live in Syracuse NY, electric prices through Solvay electric (Solvay is a town/suburb of Syracuse) are 3 cents per kwh (link for proof: http://www.nypa.gov/partners/solvay.htm bottom of page).

National grid/nimo sucks, they are 3x/4x as expensive.

Cheap electricity and the sudden rise in bitcoin prices (sure they might go down...but they'll go back up assuredly) are why I'm here.

Good luck finding a place!

Thanks, I'm looking into Solvay due to your suggestion and will be getting in touch with the electric department by the end of the day. A problem I'm looking at though is the raw power consumption... I will need a facility that can provide far more than your average circuit... that's why I'm looking into data centers. If I could somehow work out an arrangement with the power company that would be amazing but I know not much of these types of proceedings.

[c0ikws]

Here in Quebec it's 0.03 cent per KWH

[SideWinderGX]

Need any info/help around the Solvay area feel free to ask, even without the .5 BTC it'd be interesting to glance around your server farm and see what you've got set up.

There's enough big buildings/factories in the Solvay area to figure that your MW demand shouldn't disturb anything. If you ask them of any buildings around here that are vacant but have enough wires dropped to satisfy your demands they might be able to help, off the top of my head I can't think of anything that's for sale besides some random houses/apartments that are around. Unless you buy a house and hire an electrician to drop in some more wire they won't be much help though haha.

[Bethekingdom]

Steal it

[MysteryMiner]

100 kilowatts? Did I read correctly? It is like electric train accelerating.

[nanaimogold]

100 kilowatts? Did I read correctly? It is like electric train accelerating.

I know, it's funny. Perhaps he needs 100 kw/hr per month, not 100 kW

Not all of us are power engineers. Well, I am, but the rest of you guys are probably not.

[mantis_tobbogan]

Need any info/help around the Solvay area feel free to ask, even without the .5 BTC it'd be interesting to glance around your server farm and see what you've got set up.

There's enough big buildings/factories in the Solvay area to figure that your MW demand shouldn't disturb anything. If you ask them of any buildings around here that are vacant but have enough wires dropped to satisfy your demands they might be able to help, off the top of my head I can't think of anything that's for sale besides some random houses/apartments that are around. Unless you buy a house and hire an electrician to drop in some more wire they won't be much help though haha.

I called the Solvay Electric Department today and was given direction about open real estate that is able to put up with those power needs, so I'm going to follow through with that. Any help you could give me would be great, it's actually looking like a promising spot due to the dirt cheap electricity and the fact that most data centers have minimum power requirements (80 KW/month!) that far exceed my current budget.

100 kilowatts? Did I read correctly? It is like electric train accelerating.

I know, it's funny. Perhaps he needs 100 kw/hr per month, not 100 kW

Not all of us are power engineers. Well, I am, but the rest of you guys are probably not.

I mean 1000 kWh/day, which translates to about 8 KW/month. I had a funny mix up on the phone about that today where this guy thought I was going to power a small city.

[chumpp]

my brother wants to set up a small mining farm in his office where his electricity is paid. find someone who has access to a place like that

[jamesg]

I'm looking into setting up a GPU farm. Please hold off on the criticism and death threats, I've already made up my mind. My only obstacle is finding a place with very cheap electric rates as I will be pulling some serious wattage, think upwards of 1000 kwh / day. I've heard of electric rates being as low at $.0065 near hydro electric dams, however I can't find much online. If anyone points me in the direction to find such cheap electric rates at a reasonable locale I will give them a bounty of .5 BTC, but any other help is encouraged as well

The cheapest electricity in the country is in Wenatchee, WA. The PUDs there retail electricity to the public at $0.0281 per kW. Rates can get down into the sub $0.02 range with enough usage.

http://www.douglaspud.org/NewsandReports/20122013RateAdjustment.aspx?highlight=rates

You can send the .5 BTC to the address below.

19N3XYeV6QjXqH3VHyJRi2RR9oMsxv8eUg

[MineMind]

Easy. Alaska. Why? You get paid thousands just for being there, offsetting any electric costs.