Mining and Solar Electricity

[ManagingPrime]

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?

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[Don007]

I would love to have solar devices on my roof with 20-30% "oversize", and I would definitately use it for mining coins. Unfortunately that investment here in The Netherlands is going to cost me a huge amount of money which I don't have now.

I'm not sure whether your idea is attractive to all people, but it is for people which are already into mining.  I think if you don't even know what Bitcoin is, or - even more difficult - how to mine, you don't want a rig in your house. The latter, you will just "sell" your energy.

With a (GPU) miner of 2000 watt I think you've got a hashrate between 3500/4000 khash/s. You can use http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency to see how many coins you can mine with this, and how many $ this is going to earn you.

(Use this direct URL and you will see how much you currently can earn with 4000 kh/s, without having electricity costs in mind: http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency/?sha256hr=1.00&sha256p=100.00&sha256pc=0.1000&scrypthr=4000&scryptp=2000&scryptpc=0.0&scryptnhr=450.00&scryptnp=500.00&scryptnpc=0.1000&sha256c=true&scryptc=true&e=Bitstamp)

[ManagingPrime]

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?

 

[Don007]

I don't know that calculator. I was talking about GPU-miners, which are mining Scrypt coins (like Litecoin), N-Scrypt coins or Scrypt-Jane coins.    They (the GPU's) also do produce heat, so that's a win-win situation in the winter ^^.

[ManagingPrime]

I would love to have solar devices on my roof with 20-30% "oversize", and I would definitately use it for mining coins. Unfortunately that investment here in The Netherlands is going to cost me a huge amount of money which I don't have now.

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

I'm not sure whether your idea is attractive to all people, but it is for people which are already into mining.  I think if you don't even know what Bitcoin is, or - even more difficult - how to mine, you don't want a rig in your house. The latter, you will just "sell" your energy.

With a (GPU) miner of 2000 watt I think you've got a hashrate between 3500/4000 khash/s. You can use http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency to see how many coins you can mine with this, and how many $ this is going to earn you.

(Use this direct URL and you will see how much you currently can earn with 4000 kh/s, without having electricity costs in mind: http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency/?sha256hr=1.00&sha256p=100.00&sha256pc=0.1000&scrypthr=4000&scryptp=2000&scryptpc=0.0&scryptnhr=450.00&scryptnp=500.00&scryptnpc=0.1000&sha256c=true&scryptc=true&e=Bitstamp)

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.

[Don007]

I'm not sure what a single Kwh costs me currently, but I think it's about €0,22 (= ~$0.30). It sucks, but there's nothing to do about it. 

Banks these days don't offer such loans here if you already have a (recently / new) mortgage loan, so that's no option for me either.   It's often said that it takes about 10 years to ROI on solar devices over here. Does that really differ from where you are from? I assume expensive kWh = expensive solar devices and cheap kwh = cheaper solar devices somehow.
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If someone would offer me your idea (a mining rig for the "oversize") i would take it, especially when the people self have no $$ risk involved. Currently, mining Dogecoin, it makes you $9.- a day. That's way more than they can get for selling their electricity .

[bronan]

Well i am kinda wondering if your counting last year prices if you pay 0.22 euro
Since mine costs me 0.27 which is in dollars almost 0.36, however its an estimate because i have no idea how the new tax calculation will eventually turn out to be on the end bill
Thats the problem which we have in the netherlands we pay a monthly deposit and after a year you get the final result.
Which most of the time ends in paying extra for the same usage as the previous year.
Ofcourse in our country gas/oil prices do not correct downwards only upwards, according to the same companies.
Also in many cases solar energy is not really delivering what solar cell companies tend to promise
But as i see its in southern usa for the OP i think thats a lesser issue in these sun loaded states

The problem with all mining is the difficulty, and the huge miners being build by the asic companies who sell the machines for top prices.
When you place miners you probably will make enough profit on them if you get them for the right price and more important can replace them for new ones before they no longer profitable
Any miner will be absolete in a few months time with current growth of the mining power being added by these asic manufactors
That does not mean they can not make profit, because if you make the right choice in hardware it will.
The only riscs involved is drop of value if the coins need to be sold before they have enough dollar value to make a profit or that the hardware is not making enough coins in a certain time frame.
Even now somewhat older machine still make profit even if the energy price is high, but often you need to sell the hardware before newer models flood the net again.
But thats a choice i know people who let them run till they either die or that the costs of running them is too high.

[ManagingPrime]

I'm not sure what a single Kwh costs me currently, but I think it's about €0,22 (= ~$0.30). It sucks, but there's nothing to do about it. 

Banks these days don't offer such loans here if you already have a (recently / new) mortgage loan, so that's no option for me either.   It's often said that it takes about 10 years to ROI on solar devices over here. Does that really differ from where you are from? I assume expensive kWh = expensive solar devices and cheap kwh = cheaper solar devices somehow.
- -

If someone would offer me your idea (a mining rig for the "oversize") i would take it, especially when the people self have no $$ risk involved. Currently, mining Dogecoin, it makes you $9.- a day. That's way more than they can get for selling their electricity .

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.

[Swordsoffreedom]

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?

It can be feasible the problem is that as difficulty rises profits invariably fall so they will need to upgrade their hardware every few months to maximize the profitability of doing so

That said free electricity and a miner can beat selling it back to the system.

As for coins minted depends on the hashing power

[ManagingPrime]

It can be feasible the problem is that as difficulty rises profits invariably fall so they will need to upgrade their hardware every few months to maximize the profitability of doing so

That said free electricity and a miner can beat selling it back to the system.

As for coins minted depends on the hashing power

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.

[bronan]

you never should turn off mining devices if you want them to be profitable

second high quality miners are very hard to get and cost alot as well

difficulty is the tool which slows down the blocks being made when more power is added, it actually was designed for cpu usage
so if it had only be used by cpu's it would have a very long time before the blocks would be mined even if the whole world would have been mining them.
But it all went into gpu / fpga and now the asic storm which makes it faster and faster with less power.
So the difficulty is constant being adjusted upwards by the btc mechanic to compensate the enormous power being added
The difficulty will slow down the speed in which blocks are found a little bit, but it still leaps behind the massive power being added each week.
Even now we know many companies are still in the proces of delivering machines ordered in 2013 (cointerra, bitmine, bfl) and some are busy with developing even faster ones with even more power (knc)
So your main problem will be gettting new hardware capable enough to make enough coins so they make enough in a short time frame to compensate the loss of the initial investment.
For example a cointerra costs $6000 but will be only available in june/july ... many months later then you acutally want...
Almost every company selling rigs is still using the pre-order scheme so buy and instant delivery is almost impossible.
So many things to consider and to work out.
 

[ManagingPrime]

you never should turn off mining devices if you want them to be profitable

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.

[bronan]

Without any thought if you do not have minimal 2 Ph/s its not even worth doing mining solo
If i would own 2Ph i still would add them to my favorite pool and part of it on a backup pool

[Swordsoffreedom]

It can be feasible the problem is that as difficulty rises profits invariably fall so they will need to upgrade their hardware every few months to maximize the profitability of doing so

That said free electricity and a miner can beat selling it back to the system.

As for coins minted depends on the hashing power

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.

Well In regards to 1.
It is a relationship to Moores Law where as price goes up processing power increases
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
By extension Bitcoin mining is also seeing this trend where we are moving chip size down in mm scales and getting more efficient miners
The curve is getting less steep but each generation brings more hashing power to the network so it likely will not decline any time soon

2. There are commercial operators coming online the ones I am aware of are Asicminers franchised units and Petamine as examples not sure when they will come online though.

3. Bitcoin Halving Days we already had one a while back the next one should be 2017 although it might be a bit early if the miners process transactions a bit faster on average than 10 minute blocks
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply

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"?

I guess you could turn it off based on difficulty and profitability but it makes more sense to just mine the thing until it reaches its lifespan then move it to alt coins that use the same script as bitcoin miners.

Leasing might work best should contact Friedcat that might be a more profitable idea

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

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.

2000 kWh burned in a week requires a 12kW load (10 Th/s, say), requiring a 60A/240V circuit from the Service Panel.  Few homes have such an available circuit.

Adding this continuous load to existing loads would also possibly blow the typical residential distribution transformer, which are typically designed to serve four or five typical 5kW max demand residences.

Maybe 2000 kWh burned in a month would work, power-wise.  3kW load (2.5Th/s, say), 30A/120V circuit (or 15A/240V).

A 10Th rig costs, what, $50,000?  A 2.5 Th rig costs $10,000? 

[JohanM]

We'll I'm installing a solar plant on my roof with some 20% additional power for mining.
Cost in Belgium is about 2.53 $/kWp (1.875 €/kWp).

To give an example: my 2 antminers S1 use 730Watt constantly. Over a year this gives 730*24*365 = 6394 kWh !!
That's about 50% of what I consume now (12000 kWh annually). This of course takes into account that I ran 2 pc's on boinc for the last 5+ years.

The goal is to use up 100% of day solar production. The price at night is about half so that's less a problem.

[Yottabyte]

Solar electricity sounds awesome until you actually go to buy it... for 2000watt AC you are looking at around $5,000 before installation, and then there is maintenance, battery banks, etc.... In fact the idea that any large population can use solar or wind to get any meaningful amount of electricity is pure propaganda/fantasy, solar and wind combined provide like 1% of the worlds energy and the process to create solar panels is more damaging to the environment and humans than nuclear... If you have the $ to put solar on the roof of a home more power to you, its not a terrible investment and it could pay off many years down the road, but if you are thinking of it as a way of cutting costs of mining short term... think again

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

the process to create solar panels is more damaging to the environment and humans than nuclear.

Which is why Japan is ramping up its nuclear generation and turning away from solar electricity.

Or is it the other way around?

[Yottabyte]

the process to create solar panels is more damaging to the environment and humans than nuclear.

Which is why Japan is ramping up its nuclear generation and turning away from solar electricity.

Or is it the other way around?

Hey shit happens and when you build a nuclear power plant on a fault line, the chances of shit happening go up... still doesn't change the fact that solar has had a more harmful impact on humanity overall... solar has no chance of meeting peoples electric needs which is why big oil actually sponsors it... because they they know it has no real chance to compete... nuclear on the other hand is another story... Anyways this is getting slightly off  topic, I still do not believe that installing solar for the sole purpose of saving costs on mining will work, but feel free to convince me otherwise with some real numbers.

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

solar has had a more harmful impact on humanity overall [than nuclear].

To quote something I read somewhere:

feel free to convince me ... with some real numbers.