Topic: An honest answer on mining with solar (Read 537 times)

This would be good advice if Ethereum Proof of work was still there, but we all know that that's now history, which means mining other altcoins will also not bring in the expected necessary profits, at least in this bear market.

Generally, it's a very risky venture and perhaps one that could have an ROI after a very long time. I am thinking by the time one is close to even getting the ROI, the mining gear they have could already be obsolete.

Which means to mine altcoins. Because you can not mine bitcoin again profitably with GPU since 2 or more years ago. Even after two years ago, bitcoin mining difficulty has reached all-time-high countless numbers of time and it continues to increase.

What I just know is that mining in Nigeria would be difficult unless the use of flare gases which are wastes from refineries to generate the electricity and that would be done by a company that is so much interested in mining bitcoin in Nigeria.

The only thing that's possible to run on solar panel in Nigeria is graphic cards, you can build a rig with 6 gpu and they whole rig will only take from 600watt to 750watt depend on the graphic card number, I don't advice anyone in Nigeria to use solar panel for asic miners, because they take too much juice, 2500 watt plus, to run this 2-4-7, you will spend too much money, your solar panel must be capable of over 6000 watt, because while charging the batter backup you still need to continue mining.

A solar panel usually requires certain equipment and batteries to convert solar energy into electrical energy. And the solar panel should be placed in a place where sunlight presence is high. But that is not possible in Nigeria.  It becomes very risky for Nigeria. And the voltage that can be obtained from electricity is never possible to obtain such voltage from solar panels if there is not enough light.  And mining usually requires high voltage so I think mining in Nigeria using solar panels is a difficult task.

if i have the money i will do it, a s19 consume ~ 3200w so if you want to run 2 you may need about 8kw of solar power, and a battery of at least 40kwh to serve as a buffer, and only mine from sunshine to sunset, it does not worth to do for 24hrs you will need 7kw x ~12hrs = a battery bank of at least 100+ KWh to be able to discharge it to a safety level for it life purpose

Yeah I think that's the best thing to do in Nigeria here, I mean just as you stated above even if one considers to go into mining in our country Nigeria here the disadvantages of so many factors are included and not only because of the electricity shortage, the average nigerian earn a little portion of what is needed to run a mining farm and to start it is not even the issue, the maintainance and keeping the farm working is really the major factor so I feel just purchasing your bitcoin and holding as an advance investor is probably the best option and definitely won't cause you all the stress and expenses of running a mining farm here in Nigeria which I believe its possibility is even about 45% out of 100%.

If i were off the grid, i would use batteries strictly for essential needs, better to have the mining operation running only during the day.

Battery is a killer.

A 10000 watt panel setup gives five to six hours of full power in a day

so 50000 to 60000 watts in a day.

grid tied 2- 2.4 kwatts every hour if you can grid tie.

battery you dont get that much cause you cant run the batteries down to zero.

a 10000 watt panel setup means maybe 1.5 kwatts cause you run the batteries to 40% full.

so you lose 24kwatts in power for the same panels.

worse the batteries die in five years maybe three maybe six.

so you lose daily power and have to buy batteries.

grid you don’t lose any of the solar to battery safety and the grid acts as a free battery.

my solar array would not work in many states. but it works in any state that the power company does a fair net meter setup.

so a grid tied setup allows 90-95% of the panel rating and the battery setup allows 40-50% of the panel rating.

To be honest to run a profitable battery setup is close to impossible.

Something else to keep in mind is that unless there is a grid-tie or one helluva battery bank to keep the miners running 24x7, having the miners cycling on & off every day will put large thermal stresses on the chip/heatsink interfaces and the multitude of solder joints in a miner. Miners run HOT and the large temperature swings will not be good...

This is so true when going with any investment like solar, there is a very simple formula that you need to apply and it works for everyone, however, the variables used in the calculation are different, just because it works for Phill in NJ it doesn't mean it works for you in Lagos.

For a solar investment to mine Bitcoin it's safe to assume that by "default" it just does not work for most people unless your case is very special.

does it work that way?

Others are saying it might "probably not be profitable", but in this case I am saying it's not going to be profitable. As a Nigerian weighing the circumstances surrounding self power generation in the country is very expensive even for an owner of a small scale business not to talk of mining equipments that are very expensive to afford in addition to the solar panels too.  The country is highly import reliance country which means even when it comes to maintenance every parts would have to be imported.
There are many other unfavourable environmental factors to look at too that I think are only peculiar to we Nigerians alone and I believe that's why almost every Nigerian prefer buying bitcoin and hold instead of going into mining cause the profit is not feasible.

WOW! That's a huge amount. And from the info you gave, I don't have enough knowledge about it so may I ask, with those miners and hash power. Are you making profit? Or you can only make to re collect what you invested?
I think if someone like you invest a lot in solar panel, only then they can make profit. But if someone do it on a budget and low power supplying panel, can they do it too?

The ifs are:
- you need a grid that works 24/7 as a backup, not the case for OP
- you need incentives from the government, no subsidies are available either
- you need the plan to get paid for the extra energy you feed to the grid or at least get credits for when you draw power

It would work in every country that has these programs but it will fail completely if you're on your own, and the reason why nobody is actively mining completely off-grid at anything other than hobby scale.


It's a bit less since he won't be needing 6 times more batteries (24) if he goes for more panels, 12 will be enough even at 0.6 factors, again, only one inverter needed, so more like 15k overall, still he's better buying coins.

yes you can.

but it is costly you must be grid tied and in a place where the government is friendly to solar builds.

I am involved with 3 arrays :

  45k
115k
280k
440k total. all grid tied.

all in the state of New Jersey.

Cost for them is around 1 million dollars.

they provide 70-80 k-watts a day 24/7/365 to be used for mining.

that is 23 to 27 s19 pros at no cost.

about 2.5ph

with incentives and deals with power company  they will be fully paid by 2030.

Solar is viable for mining but they are many ifs to add into that statement.

A solar panel can only reduce your energy cost by giving some power to the miners and could also be used for backup supply if the electricity is gone. And from what I know, you can't run a whole rig only powered by solar panel. Maybe there are some new arrival on the market that could do it, but I doubt it that it will cost less. Solar energy supply may lessen your cost in the short term situation, but when it comes to the long term, it may not be that much cost-efficient.

that investment means about 6 x 2 = 12kwatts of power.  and since you do not want to fully drain the batteries take that 12/.6 = 7.2 kwatts of power.

a s19 pro set to low speed does 2 kwatts.  so you could run it 3-4 hours a day.


so to run it a full day you need 3,150 x 6 = 18,900 maybe 20k

so 20k and 2k for the gear is 22k. the batteries will last about 3 -5 years.

a s10 pro on low spend makes 5.60 usd a day or 2k a year. so in 5 years you will have earn maybe 10 k against the 22k you laid out.  and it will be time for batteries.

If it shows they have extraordinary skills and you want in on it then think you should try.

I would send them a water purifier for the farm. After been doing charity. The China merchandise is easily sold.

Solar panels produce electricity, but they don't reduce consumption!
A miner that is rated 3000W will consume 3kwh an hour no matter what you sue to feed it, solar panels, wind farms, diesel generators, or the grid.

I wish people would stop seeing this as a magic solution, it works for a normal house when you have limited consumption during the night when the sun isn't producing s*** and most of the activities during the day, but with mining is a 24/7 thing, you need batteries and you need a ton of them and you drain them each day killing them faster than anything, ever faster than electric cars. So no, not something magical but something with a ton of costs, unreliable, and without government subsidies just a waste of money in most cases.


So why not a cost breakdown?
6x250W panels won't be able to feed more than one s9 even at the full sun, so you will need roughly three times more in battery storage, that's 20KWh in batteries at least.
I'm really curious, how about a simulation of running an S19 at 3000W (let's simplify this) the investment and the returns?

For me, personally, it's a battle with time. The sooner you start, the better for you in terms of return of the invesmnt, I would even go to say "no matter the cost".

This is just my personal opinion, using a solar panel in whatever you use it for, I think it will reduce your electricity consumption somehow. In short, if you use it to mine bitcoin or crypto, I think it will reduce its kWh once you start mining.

Although we know that it is quite expensive to do bitcoin mining, I just have no idea if it will be okay in the country of Nigeria, based on what I know it is very hot there,.. hopefully, solar will help panels in that situation, here in the country I belong to is okay.

Well, judging by what can be found according to the data on the market in Nigeria of components for creating kits based on solar panels, then for example a kit consisting of a 5kVA inverter +4 batteries with a capacity of 200Ah + 8 solar panels of 250W there costs 1,450,000 naira or $3,152, if you take into account the average salary in Nigeria of $170, then this is an impressive amount.

If of course you can trust this site on the review price for Nigeria https://nigerianprice.com/solar-panel-prices-in-nigeria/

 

OP I am from Nigeria and I am using solar power for my asic miner, solar panels are not that costly anymore unlike a few years back, I started with 6 250 watt solar panels then increase the number as I add more miners including gpu miners, today I can boldly say that it's worth the investment, just make sure you go with a big inverter since you won't be buying twice and keep adding panels bit by bit, before you know it you will have massive power available through Sun energy.

The answer to this question, in my opinion, cannot be accurate, given that it is related to many variable factors that differ according to place and time.

First, there are many factors that affect the solar energy, as this energy generated from the sun varies according to the place as well as according to the time (it varies according to the seasons of the year, as well as according to the hours of the day and the presence of clouds or not. It also disappears completely during the night).

All these factors make it difficult to accurately calculate the number of solar panels needed, as well as the rest of the other equipment such as batteries, inverters, and others.

After all, this profit varies according to the difficulty of mining and the price of bitcoin during different times of the year because it is also variable.
So it is very difficult to answer this question accurately.

You would be surprised how batteries are nowadays much more resilient, I'm talking 10+ years at least in a not-too-demanding use cases, and that's with the second-life ones pulled out from BEV. Something like Li-Po, Li-Ion or LFP, plus a good BMS, and you're good to go for a long time.

Possible, yes. Profitable? Probably. Adding solar to the mix just increases the time for your ROI.

Cheapest method is no batteries Let it stop at night (or grid tie inverter, use the network as battery). Of course, that means at least twice longer waiting for ROI (unless bitcoin market price enters a bull cycle).

The S19 is like 3500W so yeah 4000W in panels for each is about right.

I think you would need to sacrifice half your budget for the solar setup, so if you had for two S19, now you have for 1 + solar.

Well at least the sun isn't going to rise your bill, not sure about connecting it with a grid tie, maybe its illegal or unfeasible in Nigeria.

I'd say its a long term investment. There isn't much to maintain if you skip batteries, clean the panels once per year with a hose or something. They can easily last a couple of decades and even after that they are like 80% efficient so not worthless either.

Batteries degrade like every 3 years or so, so... I don't like them and they are expensive and heavy and you would need too many of them to keep things running at night, really not worth it.

You can also then get rid of working on classic cars. Hunting down cool collectables (be it crypto or other) and lots of other things that really have probability to loose you more in time and money they they will ever generate. But, if you enjoy doing it, want to learn how to do it and understand the process then there is no reason not to do it.

The OP asked a question, will it be profitable. The answer is really probably not. The question was not if they should do it or not.

Back in the early 2000s over a few years a neighbor of my parents rebuilt a 1980s Ferrari 308. For the cost of parts and the 1000s of hours of labor he really could have gotten a part time job stocking shelves at minim wage at the local supermarket and BOUGHT a fully restored one AND had more money and free time. But he would not have had nearly as much fun. He sold it at a loss based on money and time invested and went out and started doing another one......


-Dave

It is very expensive and a risky one to use solar for mining in Nigeria, if you are considering place with abundant sunlight in the day,it will be a temporary mining farm that will not operate through out the year. During raining season there will be little sunlight which will be unable to charge the batteries to it's fullest,the miner might shut down his mining farm. Solar batteries are the most expensive in the solar setup and their life span is just five years. This will makes it impossible for you to depend on solar as a source of power for mining but can be added to as a support in power.

5 cents or lower mining works

Solar or not, forget about mining.

The only situation where it makes sense to mine crypto if you have free or near free electricity. If you can't have this, then go buy bitcoin with the money you are going to spend on hardware. It will be a much better investment.

Doing maintenance of the hw, keeping the track of electricity prices, replacing the broken miners, updating the software... You are going to spend your time on this crap and you will probably make less money than who only bought and held coins.

Is your time really that worthless?

In my opinion, solar mining is not a big task and can be set up easily if someone wants but I feel that it will not be of much use because of the fact that its setup cost is really high and also we can't predict that if there will enough sun exposure on any particular day or bad weather, we won't be able to mine with full potential if we only rely on solar power as we only be 12 hours or less uptime on the pool due to the fact that we can only mine when there is Sun. So to wrap it up I would say for hobby it is doable on small scale, but personally I won't use it as my primary source of energy for mining.

Also for the Nigeria part would say it would be better to keep them running in china, by some friends or contacts you may know, it would be better as they would run there 24*7 = earning more, and you can compensate the person who is running for you them abroad, this way import taxes and shipping costs can be avoided.

This is not true! Solar potential is not as simple, for example, Canada has more potential for solar than Germany or England, and Mongolia than India! Check, just latitude is not enough for comparison !https://globalsolaratlas.info/map


There is such a thing as retrofitting miners to use a different kind of energy, it's electricity and you need an inverter even for your home appliances as you need to convert the direct current generated by your panels. Miners don't need any adjustment!


A single solar panel can't indeed provide too much energy but the same is for a powerplant that will burn just 1 kg of coal.
A solar farm that generates 1Gwh will power the same amount of miners as a 1Gwh output from a nuclear plant or hydro plant, let's not get into things like what weights more, a kilo of iron or a kilo of pillows.

Mining with solar energy is a promising idea in theory, as it would allow for a sustainable and renewable source of energy to power mining operations. However, in practice there are several challenges that need to be overcome for it to be a viable option.

One of the main challenges is that mining operations often require a large amount of energy, and solar power alone may not be able to provide enough energy to sustain the operation. Additionally, mining operations are often located in remote areas where access to sunlight may be limited, making it difficult to rely on solar power as a primary energy source.

Another challenge is that mining equipment and machinery is often not designed to be powered by solar energy, so retrofitting existing equipment to use solar power can be difficult and costly.

Despite these challenges, some mining companies have started to explore the use of solar energy as a supplement to traditional energy sources, and there is ongoing research into developing more efficient and cost-effective solar technologies that could be used in mining operations.

In short, mining with solar energy is possible, but it is still facing many challenges and it is not yet a widely adopted solution.

Ideally, when the equipment does not break down, you can make a profit. But if there are no good services for servicing asics and equipment for solar panels in the country, then it is better to use electricity for your own needs, and you can buy bitcoin while it is inexpensive.

This comes down to a basic calculation. Yes you can be profitable, however it will take time, you have to carfully calculate your power needs, battery needs (as I assume you will want to mine during the evening, solar array size, the miners themselves etc. you will get a calculation of cost vs profitability. A time frame based on bitcoins current, although wavering price. You may find that a break even could be years away but ultimately it should make a profit. Like ma y things it’s a risk asset investment.

Building a completely off-grid solar power station to run the rig is highly expensive in Nigeria and if someone is okay with that then they need to calculate power consumption per day and the battery requires to store that power and obviously solar panels which almost 10 or 20 times of your rig investment capital that is why we don't see more miners based on renewable sources unless they are having cheap solar panels and on-grid solar supply.

Nigeria 🇳🇬 is expensive for electronics in general.

Even if you got a deal on everything except batteries . batteries are really expensive .

if you are in the best sun locations in the world you get six to seven full strength hours of sun on average.

so 20x450 panels are 9000 watts for six or seven hours.

If perfectly effective an you run the 110th s19 pro at low speed it will burn 2000 watts an hour for 24 hours or 48000 watts a day.

so 20 panels doing 9000 watts for six hours is 54000 watts with perfect efficiency.

so buy 20 panels
buy a 10k watt inverter
buy a charger
buy a s19110.

all of the above is panels 4500
inverter 2000
charger 500
miner 2000
total 9000x

and still no batteries

100 amp battery holds 12 kwatts
so four hold 48 kwatts.
you want six so you dont drain them too much
they will weigh a lot.
and would be close to 2k

so if all worked right you spend 11k

to run a s19 110 pro at 90th and 2000 watts.

the batteries will die in under 5 years. maybe three year run with zero breaking.

90th right now is about 6 or 7 dollars a day.

that is  2100 maybe 2200 a year.

not counting price or difficulty changes. so in five years maybe you get 11000

more likely you need repairs and batteries.

so add 2000 k so you are out of pocket 13000 in five years time and earned 11000.

what kills you is batteries cost 2000 every 3-5 years.

never mind all of the parts above need to work or zero money comes in.

The first question would be, were in Nigeria?  

Cause if you're Port-Harcourt you're looking at an annual PVOUT of 1250kwh, if you're in Katsina it goes up to 1750 kwh.
That's the kWh production for 1kw of installed solar panels on average.

Add the costs, put at least a 30% margin on the power capacity for the solar panels compared to the miner consumption so you can actually mine without peak hours, and add all the costs as I have no clue how much those will cost imported with transport and taxes and install there if there are any government subsidies or anything like this and draw the line.

Going a bit to the extreme, you spend $1000 for 1Kw system, giving you 1250kwh a year, which would allow you miner to run 15 days, earning you 100$. You get them cheaper and you're in a better location, you spend $500 (highly doubt it) for $140 a year.
Not including the miner itself in the above!

One would need very powerful and genuine equipment, especially the batteries, to keep the miners running day and night. When the batteries get juiced up, it takes time to charge up and get back to full potential, so there should be more than enough backup (this is why some people use solar energy as just backup)

Also remember that if it's rainy season or if the weather is mostly cloudy, the batteries won't fully charge, so relying only on solar energy becomes hectic.

On top of that, Most solar equipment from China is substandard, from Batteries to the panels, inverters and charge controllers, so with continuous usage be sure that some of the equipment will need to be constantly maintained and even replaced. I personally discovered that the battery life span is 3–5 years (yeah, the one from China)

Long answer short, this is a very costly venture and ROI may take a very long time.

In the case of running two Antminers S19 Pro, you can build up an array from let's say something like mainstream Longi 450W panels, for example - 20 of them for a total of 9 kWp and an 8 kW inverter.

That should be enough to power them during the day and to trickle charge a battery of 40 kWh so you have something you can run off during the night.

Panels, inverter, installation, and wiring would be around 10-12k$, and battery anywhere from 10-15k$ to 30-40k$, depending on if you're going to build it yourself or use something off the shelves.

It's a pretty substantial investment, it all depends if you're going long-term, 5+ years, at least in the case of the solar system, but five years is nothing in their world because they can last up to 20 to 30 years easily, so it all boils down to how you look at it, if the math fits to what's your use case for them

Short answer: Probably not.

Loner answer: It comes down to a number of factors. Once you buy the miner and panels and some form of backup to keep it running at night and when the local power is off and the cost of the internet and so on then you may eventually get past the base RoI and start making some profit. So long as the equipment has no issues, there are no taxes & local regulations that may force a longer time to get to profit and so on.

Add in the fact the difficulty keeps going up and the price may be up or down and you get a long drawn out amount of math that may not be accurate in a week when the price and difficulty change.

-Dave

Someone ask this question on Nigerians local board, the reason why miners are not located or negligibly located in Nigeria as a result of poor electricity supply. In Nigeria, electricity supply is poor in many areas and the only option anyone that want to mine can have is to use solar energy.

Assuming you get yourself like one or two Antminer S19 Pro, powering it with solar, will it be profitable after considering the budget and maintenance?

Those miners and solar panels are not manufactured in Nigeria, they are probably manufactured in China which will make them costly as they will be shipped.