mining or selling electricity to the grid

Just throwing out a hypothetical here, feel free to jump in if I'm off base. Imagine a company sets up a green mining operation with wind farms, solar panels, and water wheels to generate power. But once they've got all that energy, why not sell it to the grid instead? I know people with solar panels can do this if they produce more power than they use. Now, let's say mining turns out to be more profitable than selling power to the grid. So, what’s stopping big utility companies from using their electricity for mining instead of just selling it to consumers? Is it the regulations?

At least in the US each state has a Public Utilities Commissions that put limits on your self-generation capacity and what you can do with it. They work with the actual Public Utility (PU) providers who own and run "The Grid(s)" in that state to properly govern the grid(s) in the state. That's why. Most PU's will require that you have a proven x amount of power usage over several months and then limit your solar/wind/water/whatnot generation capacity to that value + some reserve margin over it. The reason for that is simple: The PU's are required by law to do their practical best at providing reliable power to the areas they serve. Amongst other things that means having a good idea of how much reliable power is available on 'the Grid' and how much is being used. They cannot have a huge number of folks acting as an independent outside power source because said folks have little to no incentive to guarantee the quality and amount of power they are feeding into the grid. That said -- if you are talking about generating a few MW or more of power that is different story. Anyone can setup a private (or is often the case, local community owned) power generation site, become regulated service provider, and tie it to the grid. Especially in rural areas it is fairly common. As I recall, in Michigan the generation capacity threshold to become a service provider is a minimum designed constant capacity of 500kW with at least that amount going to feed the grid.   To do that the site has to meet many regulatory points one being that it must be built to meet all requirements of the Regional Grid Operations Authority (the US has 3 - the Eastern Grid, the Western Grid and the Texas (ERCOT) Grid, with the Eastern Grid being the largest of the three) as well as be operated per their requirements. Really? They are PUBLIC UTILITIES - not a business. They were created to serve the greater good by providing reliable power to the areas they serve and are bound by law for that to be their primary purpose. But - when it comes to excess power generation and/or normally idling reserve capacity built for handling peak loads they are free to do what they want with it. Some utilities DO use miners located at and fed by their peak-power leveling generation sites to set a heavy baseline load for easier and more efficient site operations. They then start shedding miners as the reserve capacity is called upon during time of peak loads. Once the loads drop off miners are brought back online to keep the plants operational loads fairly constant.

Also state to state the payback of sell ing your excess power to the grid varies . We have multiple solar installs in New Jersey. not a single one pays 8 cents a kwatt most pay 4 cents .. or trade credit  which is the better deal. say I have 100kwatt array average full sun is 5.5 hours or 5.5 x 100 = 550 kwatts 550/24 = 22.9kwatts an hour of free power tied to the grid say the business uses 7.9 of them and the mining uses 15 kwatts an hour so the true excess is 15 x 24 = 360 extra kwatts. at worst if I sell that is 0.04 x 360 = $14.40 at best if I sell that is 0.08 x 360 = $28.80 lets say I have 7 s17 burning 15kwatts an hour running brains firmware or 7 x 50 = 350th or 350 x 0.35 = 122.50 usd a day. so worst sell back = $14.40 best sell back       = $28.40 swap day excess burn at night and mine = $122.50 At the moment pretty much a no brainer to mine. This is pretty close to what 1 array we have is doing.

Ja, gotta say that you and your partners found each other at the perfect time 1. A industrial park developer/owner had a sweet deal with the power company due to a very heavy energy user (ice cream company) being there. Thing was, the deal had terms based on a minimum service power usage. Ice cream company left along with the huge freezers power load, as a result the developer has a problem. 2. You work with Buysolar and somehow you two connected with #1. 3. Perfect deal: Developer has a minimum power to use commitment - and a pre-existing record of power usage, they know about Bitcoin, you say something like, "Well, mining takes a lot of power but not too much space, you have warehouses with a lot of rooftop space and I know Buysolar so howzabout...." 4. Gear with decent efficiency was available at decent prices.

Alas, I was supposed to be in a similar deal with a guy who owns 2*1 MW transformers and a huge hangar, with a failed previous business, but he doesn't know about bitcoin and does not seem to think it's a serious thing, so he wanted a "fiat guarantee" of some kind which was a risk that both my partner and I couldn't take, so we ended up getting a 300kw farm( 85% less capacity) so we all lost a great opportunity because he was an old man who only believes in Cash, so this point about phill's partner knowing about BTC is pretty major.

Pretty much magical when I look back at. I AM 64 I never thought I would be well off and while it is yet to happen if deals keep moving along the local array in howell the food distribution warehouse in clifton and a new site in carbondale pa will total 1mw. Of which I get 1/4 of it. Basically look long term and expand slowly. Mikey I am the old man at.64. The warehouse guy in Clifton. Is 59 his son is 25. Buysolar is 45. The newest guy in Carbondale Pa is around 50. We also have a spot in the back room at a barbershop and my friends office he rents.from a bank. It has kind of gotten way bigger than I would have dreamed. Mining btc with a mac pro and a radeon 5797 at bitminter. 2012

That’s just not how business is done… Utilities have investors and boards, etc. Those people have diversified investment portfolios and long term financial plans. Their investments serve purposes and it is important that the underlying businesses play their role and not chase whatever fad is hot at the moment. Basically, businesses don’t just change their business models. The shops that sold shovels to gold miners didn’t close down their thriving businesses to start digging in creeks.