[Withdrawed Offer] Butterfly labs & solar loan

[Xenland]

DeathandTaxes, ruining dreams just like death and taxes 

Agreed, This is way over my head for a loan.

[1714004236]

1714004236

[brendio]

DeathandTaxes, ruining dreams just like death and taxes 

Agreed, This is way over my head for a loan.

Sorry, lenders look at financials. They don't deal in sentimentalities. You should be happy. D&T has saved you from a poor financial decision.

[Xenland]

DeathandTaxes, ruining dreams just like death and taxes  

Agreed, This is way over my head for a loan.

Sorry, lenders look at financials. They don't deal in sentimentalities. You should be happy. D&T has saved you from a poor financial decision.

I'm always happy and I am very grateful of DeathAndTaxes insightful knowledge that i was clearly unaware of, just disappointed with this particular situation outcome.

[SgtSpike]

^^ Off grid solar is the most expensive way to make electricity there is AFAIK.  Burning dirt (coal) is the cheapest.  I have a grid tied 7.5 KW system for my house and I love it.  Here in Colorado we get plenty of sunshine year round and the power company pays me dollar for dollar (I simply run the meter backward during the day) for all of my production up to my consumption for the year.  At the end of the year they send me a check for my yearly overproduction but they only pay me their cost of production for my overproduction.  So instead of giving me $0.12 per KWh they only give me about $0.02 per KWh, nice profit margin for them since they burn lots of dirt.

Given this sytem I will break even in about 6 years but only because the power company paid for over half of my system in rebates.  If I had to pay for the system out of my pocked my break even would be more like 12-15 years, depending on how fast the panels and inverters wear out.

You have a nice idea but I fear it will probably be too expensive to implement and run.

6 years is by far the best break even I've ever heard of being achieved with solar.  Can you give more details on your setup?

[jamessandydale]

Free electricity = free money. I think we've all had these thoughts at some point.

[Xenland]

Free electricity = free money. I think we've all had these thoughts at some point.

Not that anyone mentioned free electricity, i for one had the preassumption that solar panels degrade in effciency and can obviously bust. Im still willing to pursue this idea just not with other peoples money when they are expecting to be paid back in less then a year or so.
I just dont have $2000 to throw down to participate in a fun solar power bitcoin mining rig at the moment ;(

[BurtW]

6 years is by far the best break even I've ever heard of being achieved with solar.  Can you give more details on your setup?

I just happened to get in near the peak of the rebates by our power company in 2009.

7.35 KW system (7,350 Utility rating watts, 6,300 PTC rating watts)

Code:

Panels:          42 x ET-M572175
System cost:     $41,450
Cash discount:    -2,151
Total price:      39,300
Gov Fees:            500
Taxes:               269
Total:            40,069
Xcel Rebate:     -25,725
Out of pocket:    14,344
Fed tax credit:   -4,303
Final cost:       10,041 = $1.37/W 

The actual break even depends on the average cost of electricity and my average production over the next few years.  Using 10,041 KWh/year as my estimated average production (close enough and it makes the math very easy):

Code:

 10,041 ($) / 0.15 ($/KWh) / 10,041 (KWh/year) = 6.67 years
10,041 ($) / 0.16 ($/KWh) / 10,041 (KWh/year) = 6.25 years
10,041 ($) / 0.17 ($/KWh) / 10,041 (KWh/year) = 5.88 years
10,041 ($) / 0.18 ($/KWh) / 10,041 (KWh/year) = 5.55 years

I guess I should really start saying and thinking 7 years because the price of natural gas is falling and expected to fall or remain the same so conventional production costs will probably remain pretty low for the next few years.

[SgtSpike]

That's dang nice Burt!  Thanks for the details. 

[Glasswalker]

I'd like to point out that in Ontario Canada, the current electricity cost is around $0.15/KWh (it's all tiered so hard to calculate accurately but it's around there)

But with Solar if you go grid tied, the government will sign a 20 year contract with you, with a locked in rate of $0.802/KWh paying you for power generated by a solar setup. It has a max of 10KW capacity though per contract.

With those rates, if you have the skills to build the panels yourself, and frames, and install it all, you can do a system for about $1/W of capacity if you go for a full 10KW system (give or take, and assuming you do all labour yourself)

for a $10K investment you can generate 10KW (peak capacity) which likely averages out to something like 3KW in summer, and 1.5KW in winter spread across 24H based on our sun exposure here. That would generate about $2K a month in summer and $1K a month in winter. Assuming your gear lasts 10year without needing replacement, that puts the income per year at around $18K

But that all has nothing to do with bitcoin mining Other than that in that home with the solar array, electricity is essentially free after the first 6-8 months.

(and yes anyone who owns a home with enough roof space, and enough sun exposure who doesn't invest in this is insane!) lol

[SgtSpike]

I'd like to point out that in Ontario Canada, the current electricity cost is around $0.15/KWh (it's all tiered so hard to calculate accurately but it's around there)

But with Solar if you go grid tied, the government will sign a 20 year contract with you, with a locked in rate of $0.802/KWh paying you for power generated by a solar setup. It has a max of 10KW capacity though per contract.

With those rates, if you have the skills to build the panels yourself, and frames, and install it all, you can do a system for about $1/W of capacity if you go for a full 10KW system (give or take, and assuming you do all labour yourself)

for a $10K investment you can generate 10KW (peak capacity) which likely averages out to something like 3KW in summer, and 1.5KW in winter spread across 24H based on our sun exposure here. That would generate about $2K a month in summer and $1K a month in winter. Assuming your gear lasts 10year without needing replacement, that puts the income per year at around $18K

But that all has nothing to do with bitcoin mining Other than that in that home with the solar array, electricity is essentially free after the first 6-8 months.

(and yes anyone who owns a home with enough roof space, and enough sun exposure who doesn't invest in this is insane!) lol

WOW.

The irony is how unsustainable the model to subsidize sustainable energies is...

[Glasswalker]

Admittedly though, a "professionally installed" system will cost you $40K for the same capacity. But it still pays for itself in like 2 years. with 8 more years of profit (minimum) to be expected at $18K a year.

That said though, the installers are the ones making a killing on this. Since the demand for installs is high while the taking is ripe (before the government comes to their senses and changes the price they are paying) lol... The installers are getting more work than they can shake a stick at. And at a going markup of like $30K for their labour basically. Even if you are talking 300 man-hours of time to install a 10KW system (which it's nowhere near) you would be looking at paying $20/hr to all your people (including yourself) and still walking away with well over $20K in profit per install

And yeah, it's fantastic. When I learned about the program I had to spend like 2 weeks researching it because I refused to believe it. The "Too good to be true" alarm was going off like mad...

But no, it's all true, our government has just completely lost their senses lol... Stark raving mad. "Let's pay the general public over 5 times what we charge for some renewable energy! That will convince people to put up solar panels!"... I'm guessing someone forecasted that the cost of electricity will go up by that much well within the 20year contract making it worthwhile for the government. But 500% inflation in price over 20 years? That's hard to swallow lol...

[SgtSpike]

Admittedly though, a "professionally installed" system will cost you $40K for the same capacity. But it still pays for itself in like 2 years. with 8 more years of profit (minimum) to be expected at $18K a year.

That said though, the installers are the ones making a killing on this. Since the demand for installs is high while the taking is ripe (before the government comes to their senses and changes the price they are paying) lol... The installers are getting more work than they can shake a stick at. And at a going markup of like $30K for their labour basically. Even if you are talking 300 man-hours of time to install a 10KW system (which it's nowhere near) you would be looking at paying $20/hr to all your people (including yourself) and still walking away with well over $20K in profit per install

And yeah, it's fantastic. When I learned about the program I had to spend like 2 weeks researching it because I refused to believe it. The "Too good to be true" alarm was going off like mad...

But no, it's all true, our government has just completely lost their senses lol... Stark raving mad. "Let's pay the general public over 5 times what we charge for some renewable energy! That will convince people to put up solar panels!"... I'm guessing someone forecasted that the cost of electricity will go up by that much well within the 20year contract making it worthwhile for the government. But 500% inflation in price over 20 years? That's hard to swallow lol...

Yeah I'd do that in a heartbeat if they had such an incentive here... as it is, in my county, they actually pay LESS per kwh for electricity sold back to them.  They'll pay you something like $0.077/kwh, and then resell it for $0.086/kwh.  And that only kicks in if you have 10,000 kwh or more!  Otherwise, you can only get credit against your bill...  There's local and state incentives to help with the installation costs, but I think it only covers up to $4,000 between the two...

Solar panels are getting cheaper, which is good.  It may yet be economical to install them in the future even without any government incentives!

[brendio]

I'd like to point out that in Ontario Canada, the current electricity cost is around $0.15/KWh (it's all tiered so hard to calculate accurately but it's around there)

But with Solar if you go grid tied, the government will sign a 20 year contract with you, with a locked in rate of $0.802/KWh

That's insane!

Just make sure they don't do what the government of New South Wales did and renege on their long-term contractual agreements when they realise they've been paying too much and sending themselves broke!

[steelhouse]

You can buy solar panels for $1 a watt.  You can buy a 1000W grid tie inverter with MPPT for $269 on ebay.  Thus for  $1269 you can run about a gigahash using old equipment.  If it is just sitting around anyway it is free.   In 5 hours a day, you will earn 1 btc a week.  Take about 4 years to pay it off in BTC.

[Bitcoin Oz]

Someone should setup a solar array on their roof and sell shares on glbse if its that profitable

[Xenland]

Doing my own research i feel there is propaganda to get less people to solar mine....

[BurtW]

Doing my own research i feel there is propaganda to get less people to solar mine....

Please report back what you find!

[brendio]

Doing my own research i feel there is propaganda to get less people to solar mine....

If you solar mine, will you also solo mine? You could be a solo solar miner!

[BurtW]

Doing my own research i feel there is propaganda to get less people to solar mine....

If you solar mine, will you also solo mine? You could be a solo solar miner!

[Bitcoin Oz]

I did some research and a 10kw solar array on my roof would net about 9 000+ a year after government rebates and the feed in tarriff from the power company is taken into account  

So the money isnt in solar bitcoin mining it is in the solar system itself.

Im gathering some exact figures on hardware and installation costs. The upfront cost is rather large.