RE: Want to Earn $$$ Using the CPU of Your Mining Rigs or Home Computers? Gridcoin [GRC] CPU Mining Revenue in USD! (Up to USD$70/m per CPU for Intel i7!)
@scalextrix - you're based in England and mine using solar power? That's an incredible achievement in and of itself! Would love to give this a go one day if I can ever get myself set up with solar power :)
Yeah, of course I dont run 24/7 and the summer mining day is twice as long as the winter mining day. I dont have batteries so I can only mine for 'free' in the daylight.
If we are talking CPU mining only, my PC, Laptop, 2 Raspberry PIs and 3 Android devices only need ~230watts (measured at the wall), If I add my GPU then thats ~360Watts.
My solar install has a peak theoretical output of 3.975kW. On misty, misterable mid-winter days, the solar output might only be 2-300Watts, but on a fairly bright winter day we can still get 1kW, even more if its sunny. Cold weather actually makes solar panels more efficient, for our ones every drop of 1deg C, the panels gain 0.7% output compared to their factory test rating at 20 degC.
People think you need to live in hot sunny climates for solar PV to work, but I can tell you first hand that is not the case.
Going offgrid in the UK is un-feasible really, unless you are prepared to be extremely energy efficient, as crypto miners we obviously dont fall into that bracket. But I do have LED lighting and high efficiency appliances (my PC has a Platinum rated PSU) so it all helps.
Of course as a solar PV generator, I also claim my free SolarCoin grant, even more profits yay :)
Wow, that's really interesting! So many questions, but primarily I'm concerned that solar is unfeasible for me due to general cost of the purchase / installation.
Were you one of the lucky few that was able to get your installation back when there were all kinds of grants / at a better feed-in rate? Or did you fund and install it yourself? Just trying to get a feel for general cost at the moment - it's something I'd love to try out.
Batteries sound like they'd make the world of difference, though I imagine efficient and safe energy storage is an issue that's still yet to be solved within the confines of 'reasonable cost'?
I had my system installed in Nov 2014, It was £7,900 then but we went for a more expensive system because we have a roof that has multiple angles and we needed 'micro-inverters' to maximise the yeald. I dont know the market but I should expect with a single 'string-inverter' you would get a similar size system for half the cost today.
Feed-in-Tarriffs wer drastically cut here, but I expect with reduced costs it still pays back on a similar timescale, mine is around 8 years.
Thanks for taking the time to reply @scalextrix, really appreciate it. I'll take another look at the possibility of getting a system installed - that's actually cheaper than I expected for a reasonable system. I'm sure I remember looking at it some years ago and the price was astronomical!
I see you say you don't have batteries? Why not some glass mat or deep cycle gel cells? I am confused as don't you have storage charing with what you are not currently consuming and for non light hours? Also we have someone who is on a diesel generator too , out in Puerto Rico where ( pre Maria and Jose mind you still hundreds of thousands still without power 8mo latter) was already in an area where the power provider by the power company only during the daytime and reliability was iffy at best , I wont name him he can do that if he wishes but is an avid Android and pi miner although one of the first I saw to get a Ryzen. Cool to know you are solar.
Batteries just aren't economic based on the grid cost of electricity here. If grid power was high cost or intermittent, then batteries would be worth It, but as it stands the batteries would degrade before we saved enough energy to pay for them.
I hope as battery tech gets cheaper/as electricity costs increase, we can get batteries and at least break even on cost.
@scalextrix - you're based in England and mine using solar power? That's an incredible achievement in and of itself! Would love to give this a go one day if I can ever get myself set up with solar power :)
Yeah, of course I dont run 24/7 and the summer mining day is twice as long as the winter mining day. I dont have batteries so I can only mine for 'free' in the daylight.
If we are talking CPU mining only, my PC, Laptop, 2 Raspberry PIs and 3 Android devices only need ~230watts (measured at the wall), If I add my GPU then thats ~360Watts.
My solar install has a peak theoretical output of 3.975kW. On misty, misterable mid-winter days, the solar output might only be 2-300Watts, but on a fairly bright winter day we can still get 1kW, even more if its sunny. Cold weather actually makes solar panels more efficient, for our ones every drop of 1deg C, the panels gain 0.7% output compared to their factory test rating at 20 degC.
People think you need to live in hot sunny climates for solar PV to work, but I can tell you first hand that is not the case.
Going offgrid in the UK is un-feasible really, unless you are prepared to be extremely energy efficient, as crypto miners we obviously dont fall into that bracket. But I do have LED lighting and high efficiency appliances (my PC has a Platinum rated PSU) so it all helps.
Of course as a solar PV generator, I also claim my free SolarCoin grant, even more profits yay :)
Wow, that's really interesting! So many questions, but primarily I'm concerned that solar is unfeasible for me due to general cost of the purchase / installation.
Were you one of the lucky few that was able to get your installation back when there were all kinds of grants / at a better feed-in rate? Or did you fund and install it yourself? Just trying to get a feel for general cost at the moment - it's something I'd love to try out.
Batteries sound like they'd make the world of difference, though I imagine efficient and safe energy storage is an issue that's still yet to be solved within the confines of 'reasonable cost'?
Thank you for the detailed post!
I had my system installed in Nov 2014, It was £7,900 then but we went for a more expensive system because we have a roof that has multiple angles and we needed 'micro-inverters' to maximise the yeald. I dont know the market but I should expect with a single 'string-inverter' you would get a similar size system for half the cost today.
Feed-in-Tarriffs wer drastically cut here, but I expect with reduced costs it still pays back on a similar timescale, mine is around 8 years.
Thanks for taking the time to reply @scalextrix, really appreciate it. I'll take another look at the possibility of getting a system installed - that's actually cheaper than I expected for a reasonable system. I'm sure I remember looking at it some years ago and the price was astronomical!
If you do get a system, dont forget to claim your free SolarCoin www.solarcoin.org
I see you say you don't have batteries? Why not some glass mat or deep cycle gel cells? I am confused as don't you have storage charing with what you are not currently consuming and for non light hours? Also we have someone who is on a diesel generator too , out in Puerto Rico where ( pre Maria and Jose mind you still hundreds of thousands still without power 8mo latter) was already in an area where the power provider by the power company only during the daytime and reliability was iffy at best , I wont name him he can do that if he wishes but is an avid Android and pi miner although one of the first I saw to get a Ryzen. Cool to know you are solar.
Batteries just aren't economic based on the grid cost of electricity here. If grid power was high cost or intermittent, then batteries would be worth It, but as it stands the batteries would degrade before we saved enough energy to pay for them.
I hope as battery tech gets cheaper/as electricity costs increase, we can get batteries and at least break even on cost.