Apparently theres a lot of excess solar energy that no one is using where I live. The government isnt buying back all of the solar produces so some of it is just "thrown away".
I know how to start connecting to solae farms, but not sure what to suggest ro them. I am sure some setup of mining could be perfect but Im just a small home miner atm.
Any thoughts? You know someone already doing something similar? Would love to learn.
I guess it depends if they have batteries and many other variables thay needs to be looked at... but it seems to me like an interesting opportunity.
It depends on a lot of factors, like depreciation of the mining hardware. If you're only mining during peak solar hours (the middle of the day), you're gonna get less out of your miners than a rig in kazakhstan that's running them 24/7.
Also, how does the pricing of power work during excess hours? You could set up some sort of script to fetch the rates from your supplier and start/stop mining based on the price. You might need to do some talking with your supplier or local power company to figure this stuff out.
You can also run the numbers to see if it's worth it to GPU or CPU mine another coin, but that probably won't be more profitable.
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I know how to start connecting to solar farms, but not sure what to suggest ro them.
What does "connecting to solar farms" mean? Are you using "connecting" referring to dialog with them or are you referring to the actual physical wiring / connecting to their supply of power aspect?
I guess it depends if they have batteries and many other variables that needs to be looked at
I'm not an expert on utility scale solar generation, but I don't think there are many solar farms that have battery storage.
As far as the opportunity ... until S9s are back to being $25-ish (i.e., essentially being scrapped), the capex spend on rigs is still so high that there simply isn't an economically viable path that doesn't have them hashing somewhat approaching 24/7, 365 days a year. You won't have that with solar. Depending on various factors, PV solar produces less than 10 hours per day, ... and as little as only 6 hours per day. Clouds and other conditions will have an impact as well.
Now if there was also some baseload source that is in excess during off peak, you might be able to make the case where if the price on solar is good (e.g., $0.05) but only consumed from 8am - 4pm, and then the off-peak baseload (e.g., hydroelectric, or whatever) from 9pm to 6am ... also available at or near that $0.05 price, then you might be able to justify operating even if the rigs are powered on only for those 17 hours per day. I don't know anywhere today that such a tactic is performed, commercially, but it likely will happen, at some point.
You didn't mention your intent. Are you looking for this as a possible mining venture yourself, ... or are you simply hoping to see this unused solar be put to good use, and advise the solar operator on methods bitcoin could help?
Either way, firstly, try to learn to what extent there really is installed solar capacity that is in excess of demand. Sure, there may be days that the grid only wanted half the solar output capacity or something like that but I doubt it is something that occurs every day. Every scenario is going to be unique.
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Thanks for the answer. I meant talking with farms operators. I have a friend in the industry and he said that espcially during summer there are lots of excess solar energy everyday. And its about 6 months over here.
S9 used to cost 25$!? Wow.
My intention if to see if I can do something about it personally. Just realizing there is a lot of unused solar energy seems like a good opportunity, wether its running a mine or helping those companies start mining their own bitcoin.
If its really as I understood - they basically produce more energy than they need and the government's electric company buys it for really cheap and after certain amount doeasnt buy it at all... so I guess they could sell it for really cheap or even agree to get % of the bitcoins mined.
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S9 used to cost 25$!? Wow.
Yes, from late 2019 through the first half 2020 the S9s were simply not profitable at even just a few cents per kWh, so miners were liquidating en masse and buying newer models. Example:
20,000 Used Antminer S9 13.5Th for sale in New York, USA
Price: $22 each
MOQ: 20,000 units
PSU: Included in price, the same brand/manufacturer as the miner
Of course, that was a MOQ of 20,000 units but on ebay, craigslist, telegram groups, and such there were many available at $50 and under in 2022 (down from around $200 in late-2019).
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Amazing!
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