This is just an amazing project!
Can't wait to see/buy the final product.
yes I held off filling the solar array. we have 13-16 k-watts of power for mining and right now I have 7 avalon 6's marked for it. 2 actually running 4 in my garage and 1 on a ups truck coming to my home as I type.
so that is 7 kwatts
this means buysolar and I will be looking to add 6 to 9 k- watts worth of this gear.
We are hopeful that we will have 22th avalon + 60th bitfury = 82th
By July 1
Damn you...
Now you have me looking at solar at least at home to offset my miners here (now ~3.9kw). At 15-cents/kWh - ouch.
Just got the bill for last month when I was running 6.5 kw of s7's here (for winter heating ya know), um we had many days over 65 here so my AC had to run to keep the house below 80F. $1,054 worth of owwie there... The upside to that is I think my furnace only came on 2-3 times over the winter so normal heating costs for the gas & electric to run the blower were near zero.
In looking around just found
http://www.ecodirect.com/ who carry tones of goodies and - they take BTC.
Panels, inverters, controllers, LED lights, you name it.
Methinks I'll peruse their wares for a bit... I like the micro-inverter idea 'specially since they output 240VAC and prices look rather good. Hmm...
I generally do not recommend micro inverters unless you are planning on adding just one panel at a time. Micro inverters are much more expensive and they are lower efficiency than other available choices. If you're really just trying to keep your price as low as possible, you could get a dc-dc inverter and run the miner directly off of that. For the initial system, I recommend you get the best DC to AC inverter you can and tie it directly to your home, that way you will always be able to use the energy regardless of what happens with your bitcoin hobby. As for the website, it looks like they have a lot of choices but their prices aren't great. Might want to check out these guys, they've been accepting bitcoin for a long time and they're one of the oldest solar companies in the country, they don't post their prices on their website but they can get you amazing deals
www.ecologicalsystems.biz. Another thing you might want to consider is contacting a local solar installer. If they are a well established older company, they might have some used product or product that has cosmetic damage that they would let you have for extremely low prices. Solar panels are typically warranteed for at least 20 years, so a panel that is 10 years old might still have a 15 year warranty from the manufacturer. Buying panels from a local supplier will usually save you the cost of shipping, which for small orders like one or two panels can cost almost as much as the panels.
