Simple question about Bitcoin mining

Is it possible to turn Bitcoin mining on and off, then resume exactly where I left off? I recently got a house with solar panels that produce over 20 kWh daily than I actually consume. I’m wondering if I can set up mining to only use around 20 kWh a day, or if I can shut it down after hitting that limit and then have it start right back up where it paused. Maybe I could mine for a few weeks and take breaks for a few weeks too. I have net metering, and if I don’t use the excess power, the utility company takes it for free. Electricity costs about 40 cents per kWh here, so I wanna avoid exceeding what I can generate. Does mining even make sense for this setup? Appreciate any advice!

I will rule out solo mining. I don't think it makes sense. So, when you do pool mining, your miner gets work from time to time and sends hashes. Of course, you can stop whenever you want, but a PPLNS pool may penalize you a little when you're back. So you may have to read more about PPS/FPPS/PPLNS/PPS+ and whatever methods exist and see what is best for you. (One page google has returned to me is https://medium.com/luxor/mining-pool-payment-methods-pps-vs-pplns-ac699f44149f#) I don't know how many hours would your mining go every day (probably @philipma1957 will come with the proper math), I think that it makes sense only if it's more than 2-3h Keep in mind that if you are on PPLNS, you mine for 1h and the next block found by that specific pool is only after 4-5h, you will probably earn nothing. Again, you have to look for the pool type that suits you best (payment type and maybe also frequency of mined blocks). But imho you can mine too even if it's not 24/7.

Do you have a place to put the miner where the noise, which is a lot with modern miners, would not disturb people while the sun is up? Do you have enough additional cooling / power for cooling? Unless you get a good deal on a used miner even with free power making your money back on mining only part of the day is going to take a long time. Not trying to discourage you, but it is something to think about. -Dave

20kwh flat a day assuming no extra spent on anything as cooling would be able to run him an S19Pro for 6 hours a day, just a little bit more with an S19XP, but I would not let it go for more than 5 to be extremely sure some other thing in my house will not push the consumption over. But let's stick with the 6 since it's easier for math, 1/4 of a day. Standard bitmain shop prices, no taxes, a 19Pro will get you 2.5$ a day, so it will take about 1800 days to make for the miner, the S19XP will do 3.5 and I remember Mikeywith saying something of 8k for one, so 2200 days. I assume that in your contract is stipulated how you can use your extra energy, I don't think that any company has written there it must be exactly the same quota each day, so you could simply let it run for one week continuously and then shut it, less stressful for the miner and for yourself. I agree with DaveF, get one older generation used miner, less revenue but at least chances of actually making a profit, that is...if the miner doesn't break. Let's see if somebody is up to date with used gear prices, as I have like zero idea where those are right now.

Thanks for all the answers. I think it’s too long to break even on getting a miner. I wish I could I figure out what I could do with the extra power.

you can gpu mine.  which means alt coins which means this would need to be alt coin mining . a pair of rtx 3060 cost about $800 at best buy. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/pny-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-12gb-xlr8-gaming-revel-epic-x-rgb-dual-fan-graphics-card/6454319.p?skuId=6454319 A psu a stick of ram and a motherboard is well under 200 so for under $1000 the unit would have a 3 year warranty it earns 2 a day and with net metering   it burns about 7-8 kwatts a day. So it would fully pay off in 500 days. Should you rush to do it? No you should wait till September and see what happens to eth cards may drop in price. you may be able to build the rig under $750 you can mine eth or etc and convert to btc. I do it all the time.

NiceHash uses PPS and pays for each and every accepted share. Even if just one share is sent from the miner to NiceHash. You can mine for 1 minute and then disconnect for 1 hour if you wish. You will not get penalized. https://www.nicehash.com/support/mining-help/earnings-and-payments/what-is-the-pps-reward-system

With ETH going PoS... I guess that there won't be ETH mining after September (am I wrong?). But I would not rule out a great recovery of ETC. However, finding what (other than ETC) coins can be mined after September may be interesting.

eth is mineable till Jan or feb. 2023 but diff goes way up in sept. 2022 It should be very interesting time say 24-25 days or so from now. @nicehash I point some gpus to you as I type.