Offgrid power options for crypto mining

ggse000 · January 2018

Roner said:

@ggse000 I %100 believe in your vision as this is something I would like to do myself and am currently doing research on how to make this profitable without adding to our environmental problems. I have to admit though I am neither an engineer or a programmer, but a business grad that loves challenges and most of all, profit. I truly believe blockchain and digital currency will be used long term but I think the average person is quickly going to be priced out of any mining at all, much less on large scale (this might already be the case). I also believe that renewable and sustainable energy is the only responsible way to go forward and if we aren't there yet as far as our technology some of these amazing profits people are making need to be spurring the research.

I'd love to help any way I could, or at least collaborate to some degree. Either way, if you break down this barrier I'll be waiting for a how-to guide!

Yes, we should collaborate at least for some degree. For this type of venture self-starter, can-do and enthusiasm often goes long way.!

Estragon · January 2018

BC is adding a big hydro project, (somewhat controversial - site c dam) so will be significantly "green" energy generation when complete. Vancouver real estate prices are high though, and traffic is brutal if you have to commute.

ggse000 · January 2018

Estragon said:

BC is adding a big hydro project, (somewhat controversial - site c dam) so will be significantly "green" energy generation when complete. Vancouver real estate prices are high though, and traffic is brutal if you have to commute.

Metro areas are probably prohibitive. I'd choose to do it in suburb far away from major metro areas but still being served by hydro source. That would be ideal.

Photowhit · January 2018

Remember that part of the electrical expense is cooling the systems, so a northern climate would be a must.

clockmanfran · January 2018

ggse000,

Not sure where you are going with this discussion. And not sure if I can add to it, but here goes.

Practically and in realistic terms, producing Off Grid systems at a, say max 15kW, ie domestic household, is reasonably feasible, that's if you start from the ground up.

Going the commercial route of buying in off the shelf ready Boxed systems is just not cost effective and personally speaking I don't think it ever will be.

Several years ago I had problems interfacing other manufacturers products to achieve what the manufacturers said they could do.

So with the help of RE/sustainability forums across the world, I have gone back to basics and produced stuff and importantly documented it into 'HOW TO' books. So folk with some brains can make their own and have their own particular self empowerment.

Where do we go from here? Below is my cost effectiveness with 6kW -15kW systems, where a family household is normal, passive house standards, and NOT Living in a hole in the ground.

Generation...... 20kW PV, winter months have to be considered. PV is the way forward, and boy have the costs plummeted over the last 20 years. At present Good PV is down at $0.30 per watt, but then there is installation costs and consideration for the local environment. Forget Trackers, and yes I have done a Tracker book, but the costs are just not sensible when a few more panels can be added to make up for that 30% loss.

Power storage. ....... Battery technologies strives forward, but the good old lead acid is still cost effective if its done correctly. Several of us have been looking/testing those Golf Cart buggy types, which can be very cost effective, 48vdc 1000ah at $2500. ....... Probably get around to doing some Lead Acid Plante types in a few years and produce another 'HOW TO' book.

Power conversion ..... Development of the OzInverter, ie a machine/Inverter that takes 48vdc and turns it into a Pure sine wave at 50Hz or 60Hz 120vac or 230vac, runs all day at 6kW and can take loads at 15kW and very big surge loads, as well as having a very low idle power usage. It was preliminary designed to take AC coupling with GTI's (Grid Tied Inverters) and back charge the batteries and cope with DC coupling on the same batteries. ......... Costs at about $600. .......This is a very Robust but extremely simple machine and easy to maintain and repair and are operating across the World.

For PV, we recommend using Old/Used GTI's and AC coupling to the OzInverter. very cost effective at approx. $100 per 1kW of generation/conversion.

The Future ? ........ things are going to get interesting. !

ggse000 · February 2018

clockmanfran said:

ggse000,
Not sure where you are going with this discussion. And not sure if I can add to it, but here goes.

Practically and in realistic terms, producing Off Grid systems at a, say max 15kW, ie domestic household, is reasonably feasible, that's if you start from the ground up.
Going the commercial route of buying in off the shelf ready Boxed systems is just not cost effective and personally speaking I don't think it ever will be.

Several years ago I had problems interfacing other manufacturers products to achieve what the manufacturers said they could do.
So with the help of RE/sustainability forums across the world,  I have gone back to basics and produced stuff and importantly documented it into 'HOW TO' books. So folk with some brains can make their own and have their own particular self empowerment.
Where do we go from here? Below is my cost effectiveness with 6kW -15kW systems, where a family household is normal, passive house standards, and NOT Living in a hole in the ground.

Generation...... 20kW PV, winter months have to be considered. PV is the way forward, and boy have the costs plummeted over the last 20 years. At present Good PV is down at $0.30 per watt, but then there is installation costs and consideration for the local environment. Forget Trackers, and yes I have done a Tracker book, but the costs are just not sensible when a few more panels can be added to make up for that 30% loss.
Power storage. ....... Battery technologies strives forward, but the good old lead acid is still cost effective if its done correctly. Several of us have been looking/testing those Golf Cart buggy types, which can be very cost effective, 48vdc 1000ah at $2500.  .......    Probably get around to doing some Lead Acid Plante types in a few years and produce another 'HOW TO' book.
Power conversion ..... Development of the OzInverter, ie a machine/Inverter that takes 48vdc and turns it into a Pure sine wave at 50Hz or 60Hz 120vac or 230vac, runs all day at 6kW and can take loads at 15kW and very big surge loads, as well as having a very low idle power usage. It was preliminary designed to take AC coupling with GTI's (Grid Tied Inverters) and back charge the batteries and cope with DC coupling on the same batteries. ......... Costs at about $600.         .......This is a very Robust but extremely simple machine and easy to maintain and repair and are operating across the World.
For PV, we recommend using Old/Used GTI's and AC coupling to the OzInverter. very cost effective at approx. $100 per 1kW of generation/conversion.

The Future ?     ........ things are going to get interesting. !



This looks very interesting, I wish I could do all that, already under heap of workload for the current project.

ggse000 · February 2018

I made great stride last few weeks on software aspect of my work. I started measring the carbon footprint of home miners I setup. On http server, the each miner will show the graphic temperature, performance and some other critical data. For energy efficiency the most important aspect is Solution / Watt shown across each line for each graphics model.
The crypto mining algorithm make billions of solution to find verify the transaction thus that makes up most of the power.

Most people just max out their GPU to its top as well as overclock to get the maximum rate. However that is terrible in terms of efficiency (how many solutiions being per watt). Using this data I can fine tune to find the "sweet spot" that maximizes the power usage to minimum without least reduction in performance.

The maximum power rate and its efficiency is not shown in below but when I did briefly run the graphics card at maximum power consumption of 180W (vs. 120W for most cards here) the rate increased to only 500 Sol/s. That is the efficiency of 500/180=2.77 Sol-s/watt.

Looking at the data below you can see most GPUs running at 120W and efficiency inceased to almost 60-70% at 3.85-4.4 Sol-s/watt.

THIS PAGE LAST UPDATE: Fri Feb 2 22:35:01 PST 2018

=============================================================

HOSTNAME: MINER_011_3_ROG_HK_RIG

IP: 10.0.0.16

| 42% 62C P2 119W / 120W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 100% Default | 3.85 Sol\/S\.W

| 32% 55C P2 125W / 120W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 100% Default | 3.96 Sol\/S\.W

| 37% 57C P2 122W / 120W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 100% Default | 3.94 Sol\/S\.W

=============================================================

HOSTNAME: MINER_30_4_FE_BDRM

IP: 10.0.0.17

| 43% 64C P2 85W / 90W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 98% Default | 4.36 Sol\/S\.W

| 38% 58C P2 89W / 90W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 100% Default | 4.30 Sol\/S\.W

| 43% 65C P2 90W / 90W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 96% Default | 4.24 Sol\/S\.W

| 41% 61C P2 90W / 90W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 100% Default | 4.08 Sol\/S\.W

=============================================================

HOSTNAME: MINER_15_4_ROG_HALL

IP: 10.0.0.19

| 35% 56C P2 128W / 130W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 100% Default | 3.64 Sol/S/W

| 39% 59C P2 132W / 130W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 99% Default | 3.71 Sol/S/W

| 38% 59C P2 128W / 130W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 99% Default | 3.58 Sol/S/W

=============================================================

HOSTNAME: MINER_012_ROG_BLACK_RIG

IP: 10.0.0.22

| 39% 59C P2 119W / 120W | 637MiB / 8112MiB | 99% Default | 3.96 Sol\/S\.W

| 33% 55C P2 119W / 120W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 100% Default | 3.98 Sol\/S\.W

| 43% 62C P2 123W / 120W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 100% Default | 3.90 Sol\/S\.W

| 43% 62C P2 123W / 120W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 100% Default | 4.02 Sol\/S\.W

=============================================================

HOSTNAME: MINER_012_H81

IP: 10.0.0.6

| 45% 64C P2 118W / 120W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 100% Default | 3.71 Sol\/S\.W

| 43% 62C P2 111W / 120W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 98% Default | 3.76 Sol\/S\.W

| 31% 54C P2 120W / 120W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 99% Default | 3.89 Sol\/S\.W

| 36% 57C P2 116W / 120W | 637MiB / 8114MiB | 100% Default | 3.79 Sol\/S\.W

ggse000 · February 2018

So from here you can definitely see adding renew energy is not only the way to improve the efficiency of the system and definitely the fine tuning like this will be equivalent to installing certain amount renewable energy source or even make the already installed renew source pushing even further to reducing the coal burning part of energy source.

mike95490 · February 2018

Are you accounting for the increasing difficulty of the mining as it progresses ?

example : coin #1 takes 3 seconds, #30 takes 3 minutes, #300 takes 3 weeks......

ggse000 · February 2018

It does not do anything on regards to difficulty, at least for now. Meaning If difficulty increases or decreases, it will still run at the same rate while yield will decrease and increase, respectively

ggse000 · February 2018

My employer grants me a 7 day a year for volunteer work which I am planning to spend time to do some sort of roof solar panel installation. I was wondering how 7 days are good enough for this.

softdown · February 2018

A bitcoin mining operation has been set up in Iceland due to cool weather and cheap energy. The Icelandic government is, of course, considering taxing it due to "dubious social value" or something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG7zLhEWanc

InceVIctor · January 2023

The same for me. I can't get how make crypto mining more sustainable by using off-grid power options.

HendersonStephen · January 2023

One option to consider is using a combination of solar and wind power, along with batteries, to store the energy. It might be worth investigating products that can scale and pool stored charge to power multiple mining rigs. Another thing to consider is the land usage and laws related to it. Opt for areas with good cell reception and internet connectivity outside metro areas. But is crypto mining still worth it? You should check https://fbs.com/analytics/news for the latest information.

Horsefly · January 2023

Here's a 10 megawatt solar farm for crypto mining near my childhood home: https://www.vaildaily.com/news/mystery-solved-that-secretive-solar-farm-in-western-colorado-its-officially-a-crypto-mine/

706jim · January 2023

Crypto kinda seems contra productive for green energy wouldn't ya think?

Offgrid power options for crypto mining

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THIS PAGE LAST UPDATE: Fri Feb 2 22:35:01 PST 2018

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