Author

Topic: Mining residentially...are electric companies watching? (Read 145 times)

member
Activity: 138
Merit: 10
.08/Kwh.  at .08 and average of 150 th/s thats $554 per month.  If the prices continue to go up better.  I can see it getting up to 100K this year the way things are going.
jr. member
Activity: 70
Merit: 1
What do you pay for power? At .12/ KWh those babies are pulling in just under 70 cents a day, probably better to err on the side of caution.
member
Activity: 138
Merit: 10
I've shut them down for the time being after reading the posts here.  The weather is seriously causing problems.  I don't want to be responsible for shutting down our street.  But, those 10 miners are making a profit.  I hate to see them shut down.  Guess I'll wait for the snow to melt haha.
legendary
Activity: 952
Merit: 2575
I believe the two messages that you've got from our electric company actually answer your question regarding "Can they see this". Just to give you an idea on what do 12.000 kW/h consumption represent:

According to a survey from Ovo Energy[1], an energy supply company based in Bristol, the average 24-hour electricity consumption from a sample of 250 British homes (2012) looks like this:



As you can see from the graph, the consumption goes up accordingly to certain hours in the day: During sleeping hours the consumption is at it's lowest (understandably) and it hits it's peak around evening/dinner time ( 700 watts). As you can see per the graph if we were to choose a specific time period and sum all the energy consumption, we wouldn't get anywhere near 12.000 kW/h (take in mind, we're talking about 250 homes).

If we go back a bit in that article we get a comparison of the average electricity use per household  if different areas around the globe:



Understandably your energy consumption will be higher depending on the region of the glove you are in but what concerns UK (since this is a UK based study) we're talking about an average of 3700 kWh/year. Even if we use the data from a detached house we get around 4153 kWh/year (no heating). Since this is an example we'll consider the extreme case : 6000 kWh/year .

In your post you state that you have 10 Antminer S9S. The specifications on Bitmain website state that we're talking about 1323 watts but they also say that it may have around 10 % discrepancy, so we'll assume 1400 watts for the example (I'll assume that you mine 24/7 in a 30 day period):

1,400 x 24 x 30 = 33,6 watt hours x 30 = 1,008 kW/h

You've got 10 of those so : 10 x 1,008 = 10,080 kW/h . I believe this ends up matching your calculation because we're not talking about the energy consumption that you need to keep the system cooled. I'm sure that the final consumption will be around your number.

So if we multiply that by 12 months : 10,080 kW/h x 12 = 120,960 kWh/year . If we use the previous example (6.000 kWh/year -> which may be an exaggeration) you consume the equivalent of 20,16 houses.

Normally the transformer that is installed in the area is designed to cover all the needs of a specific number of services / houses. If a single house represents 20 houses it means that the transformer has to input more energy to satisfy all the remaining needs for a specific area.

So, in short, yes your electric company can easily guess from where the energy consumption is coming from. I don't know specifics but whenever you build a house you have to let the main council of the area and the electric distributor know how much do you estimate in order for them to see if the main transformer has enough free capacity to deliver that need. If, in some rare instance, the whole neighborhood gets shutdown I'm sure they'll be looking why/what caused the overload in their systems.



[1] https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/how-much-electricity-does-a-home-use.html
member
Activity: 138
Merit: 10
Yeah, your 12kW of continuously running miners is probably using up > 1/2 the capacity for your street....  Just because you have 200A service doesn't mean you can run 200A continuously. The power company sizes the transformers based on average usage, so if everyone ramped up to using their full 200A service at the same time the transformer would go down and take the power for half your street down with it....

If your interested, you can probably trace the power lines coming out of your house and find the transformer hanging on the pole that is powering you and your neighbors. They are normally labeled with the KVA capacity.

Our power is all underground.  I don't know where the transformer is.  I started them back up just to see if I get another text message as an experiment. haha. 
legendary
Activity: 3304
Merit: 1836
Curmudgeonly hardware guy
When I built my shop I got my own transformer since it's out in the country, and I had them size it so I *could* run 200A continuously just in case. The last house I lived in in town shared a pole pod with two other houses so 12KW would have caused some problems.
hero member
Activity: 544
Merit: 589
Yeah, your 12kW of continuously running miners is probably using up > 1/2 the capacity for your street....  Just because you have 200A service doesn't mean you can run 200A continuously. The power company sizes the transformers based on average usage, so if everyone ramped up to using their full 200A service at the same time the transformer would go down and take the power for half your street down with it....

If your interested, you can probably trace the power lines coming out of your house and find the transformer hanging on the pole that is powering you and your neighbors. They are normally labeled with the KVA capacity.
legendary
Activity: 4032
Merit: 7391
'The right to privacy matters'
I got two text messages from the electric company asking folks to reduce electricity usage in a space of 30 min. yesterday.  I'm a small miner.  10 s9s but that represents about 12K worth of KW/h.  Can they see this?
I shut them down last night just to be a good neighbor.  I wouldn't want the whole street to be shut down because some in the Entergy control room saw me using so much electricity lol.

They know the load on the transformer.

And depending on you meter they may know it is you with out having to look at it.
member
Activity: 138
Merit: 10
I got two text messages from the electric company asking folks to reduce electricity usage in a space of 30 min. yesterday.  I'm a small miner.  10 s9s but that represents about 12K worth of KW/h.  Can they see this?
I shut them down last night just to be a good neighbor.  I wouldn't want the whole street to be shut down because some in the Entergy control room saw me using so much electricity lol.

Oh, forgot to say, we got record snow in LR yesterday 9 inches.  And the power grid is strained so they say.
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