Topic: New 10 KW Solar Mining Project (Read 483 times)

I too much prefer ground mounted arrays and it makes it a lot easier to maintain (snow removal, washing, replacing micro inverters if you have those).

A buddy of mine stopped by the other day with his drone toy, so I had him take an areal picture of my arrays:



So the 1st array is mounted on top of my shop building because it was there already and doesn't have to steep of a pitch, and is metal.  It is not exactly South, but pretty close.  All the ground mounted arrays are pointed due south.  The array in front doubles as an equipment storage shed.

Here's a chart of my solar production so far this month relative to the power consumed by my rigs and the rest of the household:



The power company sends me a report each Monday showing the daily kWh was delivered from the Grid, what I returned to the Grid, and what the net of that was.

Per the table above, my net through the 12th of this month, was that I produced 922 kWh of excess solar energy that was returned to the grid that will show up on my account as a bank of kWh.

The rest of my household currently consume about the same amount of power as my miners.  Come summer when the A/C will be running constantly, household consumption will go up, but so will solar production since the days are longer and the sun is higher in the sky.  So it evens out.

My mining rigs only consume about 86 kWh daily on average.  These guys:



My plan is to keep snagging up RTX 3000 series GPUs until my total household consumption matches what I produce from my solar arrays.

As long as the panel is not obstructed by anything ground mounting just as effective.  The 20ft difference in height doesnt matter to the panel as long as eithe ris unobstructed. 

See large solar farms where all panels are ground mounted.

People in densly populated areas have to roof mount because of the obstruction of the next dwelling.  But here i believe our user has plenty of room. 

The problems from roof mounting are additional weight on roof.  Most roofs in the USA are going to be asphalt shingles which means anything mounting to them diminishes the shingles life expectency.  Plus you have to make sure the homes structure can handle the weight and windload.  Ground mounting is much easier if you have the space.  It also makes cleaning and any maintenance much easier and safer...especially if roof pitch is steep and/or two story home. 

Now they are not generating much right now in the garage...terrible mounting location op....🤣🤣🤣

You don't have a roof? Solar panels are more effective on the roof top than mount grounds I believe, anyways you can build them yourself with woods and nails, if you aren't that good then hire a qualified person and explain what you plan to do, it's easy when you get a professional by yourside

Phase one complete, 10kw of solar panels arrived today.
Now the fun starts, mounting these things...
What's a good low cost DIY ground mount?

https://imgur.com/a/6iyz3N7

Solar mining only really works if you have the solar work during the day and use grid power at night or use net metering. Lithium ion batteries are expensive, inverters are expensive, lead acid batteries are expensive. The easiest all in one solution would probably be a Tesla Powerwall and getting enough of those to keep a farm online at night would be pretty expensive

The cost of setting up solar mining is way too high for someone who isn't in for long term mining business, I have a old man in my country that lives out of mining farm, he has the money to build huge solar setup and till date he is still mining, he is an inspiration to me, looking forward to build mine

Anything looks good if you ignore cost.

That's a crazy good deal! I hope you have a long term contract because I see rate hikes in the near future, especially here in TX. My supplier only pays wholesale, not worth the trouble to go through the interconnect hoops.

How has your solar barn worked out for you? I like that idea and thinking of doing something like that. Would you do it again if you had to do it over?

You are the one that's not getting it, solar is efficiency enough just like grid power depending on how you build them, mining with solar panel is generating money from the sun, there is nothing better than this, reason why many stay away is the cost of setting it up

As an engineer I used to design back up power solutions that ensured 100% uptime for my offices and remote locations. 100% solar/off grid with 24x7x365 reliability is entirely within reason with proper design & operational controls.

Your spot on with your figures, I have my L3++ antminers tuned to 488watts for 392MH/s for a total of 4880 watts. So should be good with 10KW

Imagine not paying a penny for electricity and just mining with green energy non stop, this makes more perfect sense even when there is no more bull season, what makes bear season a bad experience for miners is the cost of electricity bill but with solar every penny counts

Hmm you are the only person that thinks about long term mining on here, others believe the bullrun is already over and you are saying for the next 1year? How sure are you that we won't go deep like in 2019 again? For the past two days now my gtx1660 super are now earning 2.3$ per gpu when it was 3.5$ to 4$ per gpu

solar mining mostly benefit when bear/winter hit crypto mining and ups as backup when shadow from the cloud hit solar which is you need big battery, dont expect to much for earning full power solar 5-6hrs/day, and you need the most efficient rig on the current hardware, from solar to inverter to psu you loss 15-20% of power,

we're on bullrun for next 1 year, and 0.1kwh still doable until 2year forward and most likely we wont see big dip like 2019 again, i'm mining at 0.11kwh,  only 1 year turn off at some middle 2019 and 2020

Man, Your math is lost in time...   

Without grid power? That's going to cost a lot mate, 4000watts every hour for 24 hrs is 96,000watts, we are talking about 98x 360watts panel here which I'm sure will need battery bank of 15x 200ah batteries connected in 24v, I don't know how much these costs in dollars as I'm not from dollar spending country so do the math yourself, oh and you will need 7200 to 10,000 KVA inverter

Yep.  With a net metering agreement, I pull from the grid @$.12 and if I produce more than I consume, I push the excess back into the grid at the same rate.

My current setup uses around 4000 watts. I am curious to know how expensive is to setup solar panels that could provide 24h running rigs.

Hi crazydane! am I seeing this right, are you selling your power back to the grid @ $.12 KWh?

A grid tie in with full credit solves all issues, I'm jealous.

Thanks and also for your contributions with cpuminer-opt.

I totally agree that one should mine 24/7.  I have a 50 KW solar array that is grid tied with net metering.

I sold almost all of my GTX 1000 series GPUs back in November/December and got 5700 XTs to replace them.  I have been able to score a few RTX 3000 series cards as well.

So my power draw from mining is currently right around 4,000 watts 24/7:



Don't take Awesome Miner's word for it, here's the real power draw and AM has been adjusted to match:  (Yes, I had a rig fall over last night which is why the power draw dropped below 4,000)



4,000 watts per hour works out to 96 kWh a day, or about 2,918 kWh a month.

Here's my solar production for 2020:



The orange bars represent solar production, the green ones consumption.  The green ones are misleading because my rigs are not in the shop building during the winter (where they can be measured by the device that is capturing production).  I keep my rigs in my house where they assist with heating during the cold months.

Anyway, total production was 67,200 kWh, or 5,600 kWh per month on average.  That works out to about 185 kWh per day, or 7,700 watts per hour.

I'm located in Virginia, so depending on your location, you might do better or worse with 50 KW worth of panels.

With 10 KW, you should average about 37 kWh per day, which would be enough to power a 1,500 watt rig 24/7 when averaged out for a year.

I guess so. The case for solar should consider your entire power consumption profile. Some things are more flexible and
can be shifted to suit the availability of solar. Others, like mining, aren't so compatible. Heating is another,
it's needed mostly when the sun is weak during winter or at night. Lighting isn't a good fit either. Water heating can be shifted
somewhat by doing things like laundry during the middle of the day. Etc.

The case for mining depends mostly on the availability and average cost of power regardless of the source.

I don't see any inherent benefit to linking the two*. In fact I see a negative bias. Mining makes it more difficult to balance
the supply fluctuations while keeping the miners running 24/7.

I am a miner but I don't have solar. Mining would not be a factor in my decision should I be considering solar.

Good luck with your project.

* I mean conceptually, not electrically.

Yes, that is why the inverter I'm using is a grid backup inverter, when solar goes down during the day the grid will take over.

The choice is yours, if 6 hrs mining is perfect enough for you then going solar panel is the best choice for you, it will definitely work but running 10 L3 ASIC miners will requires double panel set because one have to consider is the sun isn't really that shiny or when there is part cloudy, if 10,000 watts is what you need per hour for 6 hrs it's wise to double the panels, go for 20,000 watts solar so you have enough buffer if the sun isn't that shining

I guess we have a different outlook on this, I'm looking long range.
With everything going on in the world power prices are set to skyrocket, when your diesel prices are eating up all your profit your wheels ain't gonna be turnin.

The only thing I need to ROI will be the solar, my miners have been paid a long time ago. I'm looking at 15 months to pay the solar off running 10 tuned L3's.
After that for 6 - 8 hrs a day my power is free if nothing breaks.

That's part of my point, don't think of solar and mining in isolation, it has to fit in with the bigger picture.

Using batteries reduces efficiency 2 ways, it costs more money up front and they're not 100% efficient.

If economics don't matter ignore everything I've said.

Going solar and batteries will you extend your ROI far longer and you may never get your ROI back, there are two things to be worried about here, first is getting the money you spent on the gpus back and second is getting the money you spent on solar panels and batteries back, this should be for those who wants to spend thousands of dollars on a mining rig farm

Please explain the reduction in the efficiency part, I'm kinda lost there, if the cost is what you referring to well mining isn't for the poor, it's a long term investment that may never end well if you don't know what you are doing, I'm from a country where grid power sucks so going solar isn't only for the mining sake, I hope you get my point

Give me this results and let me see if I can give you better answers

1. What is the exact amount of watts you need for the rigs?
2. How many hours per day you always have sun in your area?
3. Are you planning on getting backup batteries?

For example I'm using 1600 watts solar panels and 4x tubular batteries connected in 24v 440ah, my rigs takes 300 watts per hour so I have enough juice to charge up my battery bank and still keep mining

You made my point. You had to overengineer your solar production and buy batteries, increasing cost and
reducing efficiency.

It depends mate, there is 200, 300, 340 watts panels, I suggest leaving this for the professionals, hire them and explain what your plan is, I'm sure you will be satisfied, the only let down here is not running the miners overnight, to get the best result it's always wise to mine 24/7

Anyways, I'm mining on solar 24/7 with no grid power at all, it's all about calculations, assuming your rig needs only 1000 watt power I suggest going for 3000 watts solar panel, why? You will be able to mine when sun is up and also charge your battery backup for when the sun goes down, I'm running this 24/7 and it works

Do some math, get more solar panels and enough battery bank that will last you from when sun is down to the next day when sun will be up, remember, the more the panels the better

Have you ever heard the expression "If the wheels ain't turnin the truck ain't earnin"?

It's a matter of perspective. Unless you can balance power production with consumption you're
losing efficiency. It's impossible to do with solar and mining alone. Mining needs reliable power
to be efficient, solar can't provide that.

The case for solar should be based on consumers that can use all the solar power when it's available and
not suffer when it's not. Air conditioning is the best one I can think of. You have the most power on the hottest,
sunniest days, a win-win.

Again my point is solar power and mining don't mix. You need other forms of production, consumption or storage
to make it work.

I am curious to know how much solar panels do we need to get 10kwh ?

Why do you say efficient mining requires 24/7 power? If you are only trying to maximize coin output then I agree.
However you also need cheap power to make that work, I don't have cheep power available here so that strategy doesn't work for me.
I might be wrong in the way I look at this but I think efficient mining equals generating coins at the lowest possible energy usage.

If you are only concerned in lowering your electric cost from the power company then the way to go would be a properly sized grid tie system.
You will have 24/7 power available and when you have sun most of the power will be supplied by solar.
That is the lowest cost system if you want to run 24/7.

I don't understand the obsession with mining using solar power. To me it's the worst
combination because efficient mining requires reliable power 24/7.

I would look at it from a different point of view. How can I best use the solar power in real time?
Can I use it all in real time? How can I schedule my power use to maximize the use of solar and minimize
the use of grid?

Everything you offload from the grid reduces your mining costs.

Time for a new Solar Mining Project!
I have 10 KW worth of solar panels on the way.
For this one I think the direction I want to go is with one of the grid backup Inverters, not grid tied, only grid backup.
It will be like a UPS only using the grid as the battery.
There will be a small battery bank just to make things smother during switch overs.

For the most part this system will only mine during the day but will have the option to mine on grid power if there is a reason to, like ETH now...

The way it looks the profit will be higher only mining 6 - 8 hrs on solar vs 24/7 on grid power at my $.10/KWh but obviously less coins.

What do you guys think?
Will it be viable in the long run?