Bitcoin mining with solar panels

I recently got an idea to possibly invest into bitcoin mining farm with using solar panels to supply the energy to power the farm. Is it still worth it ?

 

Well probably not, it depends... buying solar panels to simply use for mining would be very expensive as solar panels aren't cheap. However, if you have solar panels already that aren't being fully used then possibly investing 1 or 2 miners for a few thousand dollars might pay off in the long run. Just be careful because you are competing with major companies when it comes to mining and that means the 'next' miner that comes out may put you out of business. To be 100% honest if you are simply trying to start mining with the goal to "profit" you would be making a safer bet to simply take the start-up money and buy "X" amount of bitcoin spread out every few weeks. (this method reduces chance of buying at peaks).

 

There are some kinds of donation for solar energy in my country to cover ~40% of it's costs. I don't own any panels and I'd have to buy some ground for that too

 

Even at 40% of its costs I assume you would still be paying quite a bit. Here is some info on solar panels,

A typical solar panel produces about 200 watts of electricity based on the efficiency and size of what's installed. For example, if you have 25 panels installed, you may have an output of about 5 kilowatts (kW).

Not sure what country you are in but here are some averages for the USA:

"In 2017, most homeowners are paying between $2.87 and $3.85 per watt to install solar, and the average gross cost of solar panels before tax credits is $16,800." info via 2017 Average Cost of Solar Panels in the U.S. | EnergySage

Basically, assuming you got 40% off of that the new price you pay is 10,080 dollars.

Now here is where things get complicated. Solar panels don't PROMISE 100% output of power at all times meaning you would be able to run about 3 bitcoin miners. (They use about 1500 +/- 10%) power draw. (average cost on a miner is 1250-2000) + a separate PSU (100-200$) So let's assume an average of $5000 dollars. Now your total investment is up to $15080 and you only get 3 miners which mine at 13.5 TH ea (40.5 TH Total) so based on a bitcoin mining calculator at current btc price of $1800 you can mine about 0.2546 ($450) Bitcoin every 2 weeks (decreases about 2-4% every 2 weeks because of difficulty increases).... So in order to make profit you are looking at having to mine for over 1 year+ and have to assume the price of bitcoin either stays the same or goes up or it can take even longer. Plus you have to hope someone doesn't release a new bitcoin miner that has a greater hash rate than yours with lower energy cost because then the difficulty goes up very quickly and your amount mined drops!

TL-DR: 1. Research cost of electricity (In this case how many solar panels you can get) Antminer s9's run about 1400 watts so you'd need about 7-8 panels per miner. 2. Consider on whether you think the price will continue to go up/down/stay the same. 3. Consider if you think new technology will come out making your inefficient. 4. Consider typing "Bitcoin mining calculator with difficulty increase" and change the price of bitcoin to see how much you can make per month... Overall $15,000 is a lot of risk for an investment but it can be worth it over time! Just make sure you research everything before going with speculation!

 

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Costs approx 5.7 of my currency per watt that's approx $1.4/watt so it's cheaper than US however even with that price it's very long time run to pay back the costs I guess

 

Yeah, I would expect a 1-2 year minimum to just regain the costs and then if your miners are even still relevant whatever little amount they can mine would be profit. However, keep in mind if you are mining .25 Bitcoin at 1800 (450/Month) its much different than mining .25 if the price drops to 900$ = (225$)! Price swings can easily make it take much less or much more time. Which is why it's generally safer to just buy say 100$/week for next year and hold for long term.

 

What would you say about these websites who rent out devices virtually and just pay you with bitcoins?

 

If there is one thing NOT to do it's that! They are always 100% gamble scams. Think about it this way, why would a company "rent out" a machine that makes them 100$/day and charges you 90$/day etc... it just logically doesn't add up because they lose money.
So here's what they do, they give you a "contract" which basically means you get X amount of power for X dollars, if the price of bitcoin dips below the cost to run (power + rental fee) then you get like a 10 period where you keep getting payouts and then your contract gets terminated! What this means is the only true way to make a profit on your investment is to have the price of bitcoin keep on increasing. Generally, the price of these contracts seems "lower" than buying your own equipment because they will sell you a lower hash rate than buying 1 miner, however it usually adds up to be much more with their fees. Go ahead and read the article I linked it will give you more info on this type of scam.

TL-DR: Cloud Mining is commonly a gamble on if the price will go up or it can in some cases even be a Ponzi scheme. ▁ ▂ ▄ ▅ ▆ Cloudmining 101 (ponzi risk assessment) ▆ ▅ ▄ ▂ ▁

 

Was just wondering I was taking under consideration it's more like investment, eg from rental fee they but more devices etc and hope after some time you quit to invest and atleast they'll have devices to mine for themselves

 

it's a really good idea , but if you look into UN agenda's for hours a day like i do , they are going to tax the @$$ out of them in the not to distant future ~5years but it is your call . Comment might not be welcome , but i thought i should share this information with you.