Can storing cheap electricity be used for mining ? (Tesla PowerWall)

jonnybravo0311

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Quote from: adaseb on June 06, 2015, 09:52:53 AM

Only way how this can be a good idea is if you get the PowerWall for free and bring it to a friends house or at work wherever you get free electricity.

If you're getting free electricity, why bother with the thing at all?

The only use case where solar/wind/water/whatever power is viable is when you've already got it installed, and you're currently generating a surplus of energy that you sell back. In this case if the value of the coin you mine is more than the value at which you sell your power, then by all means use that excess power to drive some miners.

adaseb

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Only way how this can be a good idea is if you get the PowerWall for free and bring it to a friends house or at work wherever you get free electricity.

JarvisTechnology

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Quote from: superresistant on May 05, 2015, 03:16:36 AM

In my country (I assume it is the same in most part of the world), you can have a variable rate electricity contract.
What if you store the energy in a device such as PowerWall from Tesla when the rate is at the lowest and use it when it's high ?
That way you can use the electricity at the lowest rate most of the time (maybe all the time ?).

Waiting for expert comments...

Think cloud mining. Mining is becoming increasingly difficult and it's profitability is limited to huge corporations, so yeah, cloud mining would be the way to go if I were you.
Hope that helped
Cheers

inBitweTrust

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Quote from: superresistant on May 11, 2015, 06:56:26 AM

Quote from: inBitweTrust on May 09, 2015, 09:26:44 AM

Quote from: philipma1957 on May 09, 2015, 08:08:25 AM

It does have a long warranty 7 years IIRC.

10 year warranty. It will be interesting to see what the fine print of that warranty indicates as acceptable loss. My guess is that the specifications are theoretical peak claims that quickly drop down in 6 months and as long as the powerwall can provide some power for short outages it is still functioning as designed. Many cycles from half a day of ASIC draw will completely trash this battery in short order and force you to slowly disconnect ASIC's from the battery.
One may be better off building their own battery which doesn't degrade over time and a system that allows for more than a few miners to be run by going with a hydropower setup as a battery -
http://www.homepower.com/articles/microhydro-power/equipment-products/hydro-electric-turbine-buyers-guide
2kW isn't enough.

Is it really cheaper to make your own battery system ?

Yes, a microhydro battery can be made for less than 3.5k if you build it yourself, but neither of these solutions are worthwhile and make investment sense. Running 3 antminer S5s with slightly cheaper power for the fixed cost of 3.5k where you need to drop down to 2 s5s , and than 1 s5... doesn't make sense. In order to be cost competetive with mining you need a warehouse full of miners which means you need a larger microhydro system.

All of this may be a dangerous project to undertake as 21 Inc and other companies may make this old business model obsolete. If I were to undertake such a project I would carefully design the warehouse where the microhydro battery/power generation was partially or completely recharged by rainfall/rivers and could be re purposed as a datacenter or other business if needed.

superresistant

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Quote from: inBitweTrust on May 09, 2015, 09:26:44 AM

Quote from: philipma1957 on May 09, 2015, 08:08:25 AM

It does have a long warranty 7 years IIRC.

10 year warranty. It will be interesting to see what the fine print of that warranty indicates as acceptable loss. My guess is that the specifications are theoretical peak claims that quickly drop down in 6 months and as long as the powerwall can provide some power for short outages it is still functioning as designed. Many cycles from half a day of ASIC draw will completely trash this battery in short order and force you to slowly disconnect ASIC's from the battery.
One may be better off building their own battery which doesn't degrade over time and a system that allows for more than a few miners to be run by going with a hydropower setup as a battery -
http://www.homepower.com/articles/microhydro-power/equipment-products/hydro-electric-turbine-buyers-guide
2kW isn't enough.

Is it really cheaper to make your own battery system ?

inBitweTrust

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Quote from: philipma1957 on May 09, 2015, 08:08:25 AM

It does have a long warranty 7 years IIRC.

10 year warranty. It will be interesting to see what the fine print of that warranty indicates as acceptable loss. My guess is that the specifications are theoretical peak claims that quickly drop down in 6 months and as long as the powerwall can provide some power for short outages it is still functioning as designed. Many cycles from half a day of ASIC draw will completely trash this battery in short order and force you to slowly disconnect ASIC's from the battery.

One may be better off building their own battery which doesn't degrade over time and a system that allows for more than a few miners to be run by going with a hydropower setup as a battery -
http://www.homepower.com/articles/microhydro-power/equipment-products/hydro-electric-turbine-buyers-guide

2kW isn't enough.

philipma1957

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Quote from: Amph on May 06, 2015, 01:51:30 AM

Quote from: BitBlitz on May 05, 2015, 09:59:19 PM

Quote from: guitarplinker on May 05, 2015, 08:40:33 AM

As long as your miner takes less power than the battery, then you should be saving a little money on power, since the battery will fill up at cheap times of the day.

In that case, scale the miners back or turn them off during peak rates.

Don't forget to factor in ~15% loss between charging and discharging..

not to mention that the battery can't live forever, you need to add additional cost to replace it in the future

It does have a long warranty 7 years IIRC.

AliassailA

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The tesla power wall is a battery! I have a 5KW battery made from scratch in my shed that weighs about 1/2 a tonne. Its nothing really revolutionary. Just a big friggin batter. Thats it. Not graphine or any super-capacitor/tesla super coil crap its a BATTERY made of up like 5000 lipo cells or something. I was really excited about this thinking it would be something super innovative but at least its a step in the right direction!

Amph

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Quote from: BitBlitz on May 05, 2015, 09:59:19 PM

Quote from: guitarplinker on May 05, 2015, 08:40:33 AM

As long as your miner takes less power than the battery, then you should be saving a little money on power, since the battery will fill up at cheap times of the day.

In that case, scale the miners back or turn them off during peak rates.

Don't forget to factor in ~15% loss between charging and discharging..

not to mention that the battery can't live forever, you need to add additional cost to replace it in the future

BitBlitz

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Turning money into heat since 2011.

Quote from: guitarplinker on May 05, 2015, 08:40:33 AM

As long as your miner takes less power than the battery, then you should be saving a little money on power, since the battery will fill up at cheap times of the day.

In that case, scale the miners back or turn them off during peak rates.

Don't forget to factor in ~15% loss between charging and discharging..

Bicknellski

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Battery and solar arrays / wind / water generation of electricity would be very expensive and prohibitive compared to just using the grid as it exists unless you have access to lower cost panels / systems / LiFeMnPo4 (20 to 25 year life) batteries in bulk. Typically what is offered for homes that are off grid pay for themselves in 15 to 20 years without subsidy and shorter if subsidized. Any such system could not really serve dual purpose for mining as mining is often very power hungry operationally with little or no ROI as it is. So I see you have already come to that conclusion but it could be worth trying as hobby and solo mining you might hit a few blocks and get lucky right? Wink

.

Generally speaking no it would not be viable or recommended unless you have deeply discounted components for such a system on hand in country and that country would be China for all those components. Or going around shopping for second hand panels might also be a good option don't go for discounted batteries though it is better to pay more and get longer life (warranty) for that part of the system.

bittyfree

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Quote from: superresistant on May 05, 2015, 11:04:23 AM

I know what you guys mean with the price of the device but should last about 10 years according to the manufacturer.
If it last that long it should cost between 350 - 400 USD per year.
So if it save you 33 USD per month, it is worth it.

It's just an idea, I'm not planning to do that. Mining is not profitable since a long time.
Only Chinese are mining because they have the cheapest electricity.
I was just wondering how to get cheaper power or more efficient mining.

Who knows, maybe electricity will be very cheap in the future, so buying a 3,5k machine isnt worth it to store electricity.
You need a huge contract from your electricity provider if you want a cheaper rate. China doesnt have the cheapest rates, they just own huge mining rigs and get a very cheap electricity contract from the supply for the huge consume.
Mining at home isnt actually profitable, its just fun trying to set up something and contribute to the crypto network

superresistant

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I know what you guys mean with the price of the device but it should last about 10 years according to the manufacturer.
If it last that long it should cost between 350 - 400 USD per year.
So if it save you 33 USD per month, it is worth it.

It's just an idea, I'm not planning to do that. Mining is not profitable since a long time.
Only Chinese are mining because they have the cheapest electricity.
I was just wondering how to get cheaper power or more efficient mining.

guitarplinker

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As long as your miner takes less power than the battery, then you should be saving a little money on power, since the battery will fill up at cheap times of the day. But as Stargazer said, there's no way it would be worth it for a small mining operation with just a couple Antminers or similar. Why invest in a $3500 device to save maybe $5 per month?

superresistant

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In my country (I assume it is the same in most part of the world), you can have a variable rate electricity contract.
What if you store the energy in a device such as PowerWall from Tesla when the rate is at the lowest and use it when it's high ?
That way you can use the electricity at the lowest rate most of the time (maybe all the time ?).

Waiting for expert comments...

Topic: Can storing cheap electricity be used for mining ? (Tesla PowerWall) (Read 2671 times)