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  • You've likely heard of the recent explosion of the digital currency Bitcoin.  The cryptocurrency has recently hit the mainstream, with its value now over $16,000, which has investors of all levels considering buying.  Former skeptics of the currency are now biting their tongues as the currency has already millionaires out of teenagers.

    As a result of this digital currency hysteria, a lot of people have started looking into the prospect of mining Bitcoin, which allows you to "make" Bitcoin cash for free.  The process of making it is quite complicated, but in short, it involves a computer working through a massive math equation, which aids in processing Bitcoin transactions.   The completion of thousands of these operations produces a very small amount of Bitcoin. As more Bitcoin is made, it becomes harder and requires more processing power to mine.  As a result, mining just a little bit of Bitcoin takes a bunch of powerful computers processing these equations constantly.   
     
    All over the world, large warehouses have been converted into giant Bitcoin cloud mining operations, containing hundreds of high-powered computers mining Bitcoin 24/7.  Due to the large amount of processing power required to mine Bitcoin, fans also have to be run constantly on every machine to prevent overheating.  The result is that these operations require a huge amount of energy, so a large part of their bottom line is affected by electricity costs.  
  • The massive surge in Bitcoin popularity has also lead to massive electricity consumption.  It's estimated that the Bitcoin network of computers that processes the Bitcoin cash transactions now consume around 30.14TWh a year, more than 19 European countries.  Each transaction alone uses around 300KWh of electricity, enough to boil around 360,000 kettles of water.
     
    So Bitcoin miners looking to maximize their ROI know that electricity costs are one of their biggest hurdles to jump.  That's why many large-scale miners are starting to look at installing solar panels either for their home mining setup or at their large-scale warehouse mining operation.  Installing solar renewable energy can allow miners to reduce their giant electric bills, which can save them a ton of money.
     
    One Bitcoin miner in Australia explains how their off-grid Bitcoin mine is only profitable and possible BECAUSE of solar: “I have a 1.7kw off the grid solar power setup where I am, it’s a remote mining town in Lightning Ridge Australia.  You couldn’t run a GPU farm economically, but FPGAs work fine. I get 1.5GH/sec at 100w from the FPGAs and 350MH/sec at 100w from the GPU. I also have wireless internet, so I’m not connected to any form of power or landline internet."
     
    Besides the effect on Bitcoin miner's bottom lines, solar also will help mitigate the worldwide power demand that has spiked due to Bitcoin popularity.  Like we stated, the amount of power it takes to run the Bitcoin network a year is more than many countries.  So the more miners that go solar, the less global energy need there will be.  That's good for the planet as a whole.
     
    So if you're a Bitcoin miner looking to improve the ROI of your operation, you should probably look into going solar to decrease your energy costs.  You could power an entire operation without adding any money to our existing power bills just from the solar offset.
     
    We've been installing solar in Southern California since 1998, and have installed solar for several Bitcoin miners trying to improve their ROI.  If you need, we can even work up an estimate of how much solar power you would need to offset your mining power needs.  We also specialize in installing on warehouses, so if you have a larger facility we can work with that as well.
     
    To go solar for your Bitcoin operation, call us today.

  • About the Author

    Michael Powers

    http://www.terrawatts.com/

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    Michael is one of the founding partners of Stellar Solar. In 2001, he helped launch The Home Depot’s national solar energy program which is now offering home solar through hundreds of stores in nearly a dozen states. He is a writer and marketing professional with over 30 years’ experience in the fields of energy, market intelligence and leadership training. He currently serves as treasurer and board member of Global Energy Network Institute (GENI), a San Diego-based non-governmental organization that advocates linking renewable energy resources around the world using electricity transmission.