You deserve a medal. I am very impressed. I have been toying with the idea of taking some of my crypto and cashing it in to buy a shed, cover it in solar panels and then cram as much hardware inside it that the panels can handle and then adding from there, using my crypto profits of course. Kind of like any RTS game where you have to gather resources and upgrade your units....
Thanks for the kind words.
I would love to have solar panels to supplement power from the grid. However, solar is still a bit expensive. The batteries needed to power the rigs during the evening would have to be very high amp hours as well. Led acid batteries should not be depleted more than 50% to avoid limiting their lifespan. That's why I like Lithium Ion batteries.
Lithium Ion batteries can be recharged more times than led acid. They can be depleted down to around 5 or 10 percent every time before recharging without affecting their lifespan. They also charge much faster than led acid. Given the limited amount of light we have in the Southeast United States [Compared to the West side], it would behove one investing in solar for mining to buy lithium ion batteries. However, they are VERY expensive.
One would also need panels with a minimum rating of 300 watts each on a small shed to obtain as many watts per square foot as possible. 300 watt panels are not cheap either. I would love to have 75,000 watts of solar panels with sufficient amount of amp hours in Lithium Ion batteries to run my set up. However, it would require 250 x 300 watt solar panels at a minimum to power them. At $250 each 300 watt panel, that would be $62,500 worth of panels.
If I wanted to run 75,000 watts an hour for the 11 hours the sun is down before recharging batteries again, I would need a LOT of batteries. 75,000 watts per hour x 11 hours = 825,000 watt hours. 825,000 watts divided by 12 volts = 68,750 amp hours. If I had 12 volt Lithium Ion batteries at 700 amp hours per battery [Depleted to 10% would be 630 amp hours each battery], I would require 110 batteries. Lithium Ion batteries with 700 amp hours per battery is approximately $5,000 per battery. In bulk, I could probably get them at $4,000 each x 110 batteries = $440,000. Total setup of panels and batteries with wiring, charge controller, etc... would easily cost around $550,000.
My estimate above could be off a bit. I just know it would be quite expensive. I can't imagine the space I would need for 250 solar panels. What's worse is I "KNOW" I would require more panels than what I estimated. Cause I would only have about 6 hours of peak sun light. Maybe 8 hours total if you add in the off peak. Also, I would need those 250 panels to power the 75,000 watts of rigs during the day WITH ADDITIONAL PANELS to charge the batteries for mining during the evening time. Which means I would need more than double the panels that I mentioned if I wanted to mine 24/7/365. So, the cost to run 24/7/365 would actually be double my estimate at $1,100,000.
The above estimate is assuming I was mining from 100% solar and no power grid.
75k watts per hour x 730 hours in a month = 54,750k watt hours x $0.10 cents per kWh = $5,475 a month if on the grid.
$1,100,000 for solar set up divided by $5,475 per month of grid power at $0.10 cents per kWh = 201 months divided by 12 months = 16.75 years to pay off.
I'm sure philipma1957 would know much more about solar than I do because he's currently mining with solar. Consider mine a rough estimate from little experience.
Batteries have always concerned me, I was thinking of using net metering as my method of running at night. Basically feeding the utility company my excess electricity and receiving a credit for it. I could bypass batteries altogether this way. It would of course mean doubling my solar investment relative to my power requirements though. It won't be a free ride. I would start small as a proof of concept first and expand from there.
