Making Money with Solar Power

I've got some extra solar energy, around 30 kW, thanks to my panels and inverters. Unfortunately, my current energy provider won’t buy back the excess power I generate. So, I'm thinking about diving into bitcoin mining to make some cash from this free solar energy. I have a barn on my property where I can set up the mining gear. It's all clean and has 100 amp 240VAC power available. Plus, there's gigabit ethernet out there, so I've got a solid network connection. I'm pretty handy with computers and networks, and I can set up new power circuits if needed. Right now, I'm looking at starting with an S9, which I can find used for about $500. Once I start making some profits, I’d like to upgrade to an S19. I know that mining efficiency can change a lot, but it would really help to have some current production numbers for both S19 and S9 units. From what I've seen, it seems tough to make any profit with an S9 if you're paying even a small amount for electricity. Does this plan sound reasonable? Where can I find some accurate productivity estimates for these miners? Thanks!

You can google "mining calculator" to get an estimate as to mining revenue that a miner with a particular amount of hashrate has. There are several calculators out there. If you are mining on an S9, and have free electricity, you can expect to make just under $80 per month based on current price and difficulty. If you have electricity that is free and have an unused amount that will go to waste if unused, it is in your best interest to use as much of the unused electricity as you can. Although doing so will likely result in you having to make a larger initial investment.

Is the extra power you have is generated daily? 30kw daily is not enough if you are running with an s9 miner or higher units. S9 miners have around 1300w to 1600w so if you run this miner 24hrs it consumes around 31kw to 38kw daily. So your only option is to mine lower than that miner maybe running an s9 miner with two hashboard will be fine or you can mine solo as a lottery with a USB stick GekkoScience or 2pac.

please post back. Go to viabtc.com it will give you $ per th and BTC per th. we are near 19 cents a th so a 10 th unit is $1.90 per 24 hours of mining an s9 can be had for as low as 400 usd. When you say you have 30kwatt to spare is that 30kwatt for six or seven hours of daylight ie 210kwatt a day or is it 30 kwatt total. over the daylight hours. shoot me a pm I have a lot of info. i have multiple solar projects. and some s9s to help you test.

Thanks for everyone who read and especially those who wrote a reply.  Here's where I am at: 1. Scratch the idea of an S9.  Even buying one used, it will take a while to pay it off.  Worse, the earnings from it will not appreciably fund a new machine. 2. That leaves me with something like an S19.  If I buy new, a s19 XP.  If I buy used, it depends upon the price and speed curve points. 3. Looking at my panels, and what they generate per year, I can run about 3 s19 units.  I have about 50kW of solar, and use it for my house,  But to make projections I looked at the generation over the last 10 years, and used those figures.  I have netmetering on that generation. 4. I have the option of more solar, because one of my farm lots is going into community solar, with a second build out scheduled about two years from now.  I would rather not mess with that. For one thing, it will not be netmetered power, and a different entity is doing that build.  So I am at more of a distance. 5. Current thinking is used s19 of some sort, and price vs Th will be the determining factor.  Or, I buy a s19 XP this summer, and teswt the waters, and see if I want to buy more hardware in 6 months.  Or, I do some combination.  But I would keep the power consumption below 11 kW/hr. Again, thanks to all who replied, as well as those who considered the question.

s17 used from this link may work better for you. https://vmssecuritycloud.com/product/bitmain-antminer-s17-pro-53th-2/ he is in New Jersey and Long Island New York. I grabbed 2 s17 pros from him a few weeks ago. He does repair gear. So the s17 is cheaper. Not that the s19 is a bad choice but it is pricey.

The old Antminer S9's can definitely be profitable with custom firmware and time-of-use power pricing. It is possible on some power grids to get cheap energy (< 4¢) during the night or low demand periods, even if you can only maintain 60-90% uptime. But the obvious drawback is the higher demand charge and the stress on the equipment from heating/cooling cycles. Then there's the problem of getting enough electric capacity in a warehouse, vs. using the same amount of kW for more expensive miners.

In terms of Capital Cost: So that is about $56.60 per Th/sec. A used s19 Pro, running 110 Th/sec and selling used for $5500, is about $50.00 per Th/sec. A yet to be available s19 XP, running 140 Th/sec and selling for $14,000, is about $100 per Th/sec Then we could look at the kWh cost of each miner, but looking at the s19 Pro and the s19 XP, the energy cost is about half for the XP.  In my case, that means I could run more without adding solar equipment, or I could mine about twice as much per unit of power, for twice the capital cost.

I agree. There are several reasons for avoiding s9 miners.  One additional one is that there is a very limited future used market for them. That is because anyone paying normal energy prices cannot really profit using them.  Increased infrastructure (power distribution, space and cooling will also cost.  If my power is free, the most I can make is somewhere around $2.50/day per s9.  With a $400 or $500 per miner cost, one might never break even. So a goal is to break even soon, and make a reasonable amount of money each day.