Anyone using a natural gas generator to power your mining farm?
A few years back I got a backup generator that runs on natural gas installed at my home. It's spec. sheet listed the fuel usage, so I did the calculations to see how much it cost to run per kWh and found it came out to about $0.10 per kWh, which is about half of what I pay the utility for electricity. It's a standby generator, so it could not be run continuously, and it's loud enough that my neighbors would kill me if ran it 24/7 anyway, but it got me curious so I did some research on larger prime power generators and natural gas prices around the USA.
Natural Gas Prices by State -
https://www.chooseenergy.com/data-center/natural-gas-rates-by-state/Industrial rates for gas in some states are really low. The lowest right now is Oklahoma, at $2.14/1000 ft^3.
Using $2.14/1000 ft^3, and specs from
Generac's website for their large generators that are rated for prime power, I came up with these #s. I estimated the maintenance charges based on ranges
this company gave for service contract rates. I did not take into account the cost of purchasing the generator, only the operating cost and gas cost. On the larger side of things, if you could purchase a 2nd hand SG750 for $200,000 (wild guess based on what I'm seeing on ebay...) and spread that cost over a 5 year run time at 75% load, it would come out to $0.00812/kWh.
Generac SG150 14.2L, including $800/per month for maintenance
75% load 112.5kW, $0.0426/kWh
50% load, 75kW, $0.0511/kWh
Generac SG250, including $1000/month for maintenance
75% load, 187.5kW, $0.0349/kWh
50% load, 125kW, $0.0416/kWh
Generac SG450, including $1200/month for maintenance
75% load, 337.5kW, $0.0315/kWh
50% load, 225kW, $0.0351/kWh
Generac SG750, including $1500/month for maintenance
75% load, 562.5kW, $0.0258/kWh
50% load, 375kW, $0.0289/kWh