Thoughts for 'Vosk' regarding mining and solar

VoskCoin
#1

@VoskCoin I watched your latest video on deploying solar and you asked for opinions.

Here’s how I would look at it, granted I don’t know your details like you do.

What I know, in a nutshell. Your home energy cost is quite a bit higher than your other services. Your home will never be 3 phase and it costs you around 100k to get 3 phase at your location for your other meters.

FIRST: I would build out enough solar to max your home service first. That may be enough miners that would fit in an immersion system (4-6 miners or so) in your garage and a dry cooler outside. I would do this with the possibility of utilizing heat reclamation for your home and garage heating. Water isn’t really worth it, however a simple brazed plate exchanger before your hot water tank would probably eliminate 80% of your water heating bills. Regardless, I wouldn’t even worry about reclamation at this stage. That is more end game for your situation.

SECOND: Bite the bullet and pull 3 phase if you really think you can make this work at least for the next 10 years and you plan to be on solar for let’s say 8 of those. You have access to many other systems and miners with 3 phase, which I know you already know. The other thing that 3 phase will help a lot with is saving on your large scale solar deployment. You’ll be more efficient and 3 phase components are cheaper as well. Quit d****** around with the micro inverter stuff and go 3 phase string inverters. Fronius is a top notch inverter for this.

If you don’t have the capital to deploy everything at once then build things out 1 inverter at a time. This could be 30-50 ~500 watt panels at a time. Do that until you’ve maxed out all your services or you’re broke. lol. Mining will not go anywhere, however the energy cost required to be profitable will continue to trend toward zero IMO as nations continue to get into it. They won’t care about the cost to mine, it’ll be more about being a part of securing the network and ensuring they have a say in block production. IMO, again, mining profitability will still have pockets of time where it is very profitable in fiat terms.

Takeaway notes:
Doing the house first kills your highest bill/kWh and you just mine as much as you’ll get free over the course of the year. Also, this is where you live and if all fails then you’ll at least have free power at your house for a very long time, assuming the power company doesn’t screw you on terms.

3 phase will save you $$ on all fronts at the end of the day. I can’t imagine that wouldn’t break even when factoring in all the savings over a decade.

Don’t worry about heat rec on your home, just plan for it down the road.

Just my thoughts for you. Congrats on the kid, spend time with him/her as it will go by faster than you think. Even when you spend a lot of time with them it never feels like enough when you look back. If you want to talk more solar strategy/planning, feel free to reach out or just reply in here.

2 Likes
#2

@VoskCoin

Some input after watching your latest solar “ai” video.

Bifacial would be non-negotiable IMO. It makes no sense to not do it.

Most pre-engineered plans I found for racking max out at 35 degrees. I would go with the higher tilt as it allows natural snowshed better. I have mine set at 35 degrees and probably would have gone more if plans allowed. There are actually studies that show the more vertical can be quite beneficial as it doesn’t trap heat and allows the panels to cool better in the summer. You’ll find that the heat kills output.

I don’t think you’ll save much space by going more vertical (taller). By going more vertical you’ll have to space the arrays further apart so they don’t shade each other. The benefit of more vertical though is you’ll have less to mow around, which I think you mentioned.

I wouldn’t go with panels that are too large. I recall reading studies of larger panels having potential structural issues long term. I have 465w panels. Just because a panel has higher output doesn’t mean it is the same size (more efficient). Most of the efficiencies are pretty close. Not to mention, installing them yourself will be a bit**. I had a helper with me when I installed my panels.

15kw single phase string inverters with two MPPTs.

Call those guys, they will move on prices when you have stuff ready. I saved a lot by talking with them on the phone. I bought wire, inverters, crimpers and connectors from these guys. Do not go cheap on this stuff. The last thing you want is it melting down.

I can get you in touch with a factory direct panel supplier.

Lastly, I would hire out the rack setup. Get the posts in the ground and the rails up to the proper tilt. From there it’s pretty easy.

Another thing to note is you can usually get two different length of “pigtails” on solar panels. When you figure your configuration and layout, one will make more sense than another. I was able to “string” (I hate that terminology) mine together with the provided pigtails on the panels without making additional cables. The only cables I had to make were to the first panel in the string and to the last panel in the string. With those inverters I provided I was able to do 16 panels per MPPT (2 per inverter) and no combiners were needed. No extra cables besides what I just described. It literally was as close to plug and play as you could get.

As always, feel free to hit me up if you have Qs. I am not sponsored by anyone I’ve mentioned or affiliated with them in any way. Literally just trying to help you. Don’t buy some cheap knockoff inverters.

Make sure you make max voltage calculations based off the coldest temps historically as panel voltage increases the colder it gets.

1 Like
#3

@VoskCoin don’t cheap out on inverters! This is the heartbeat of the solar system. I just spoke with a city municipal that installed 100kw solar and their cheap inverters are failing after 18 months. Not only will you have to deal with replacement, but the replacement inverters you get may have different parameters and won’t adapt to your solar panel configuration(s). Pay up front, you won’t regret it down the road.

#4

@VoskCoin sorry to call ya out again, but just trying to help your solar project. Get some “geo fabric” and lay it out behind your arrays, take a handheld propane torch and cut it a couple feet to go around each upright on the back of your racks and then pull it over the bottom horizontal bar and a couple feet under your racks. Do this before you lay gravel and the gravel will help hold it down more. the geo fabric will also help a little with weeds and it’ll keep you from losing your gravel into the dirt since the geo fabric will hold it on top of the soil. It’s a woven plastic material. It will drain water slowly. Alternately, if you’re not worried about weighting the panels down more then put it out BEFORE you install the racks and then just put the racks over the top of it. This is what I did, it help tremendously and cuts down a lot on the amount of gravel you need.

ONE thing about rock around the solar panels is rocks hold heat and heat reduces efficiency of solar panels. I’ve also seen installs where they literally lay down a WHITE plastic barrier under the entire solar array field and nothing else on top of it. My guess is it’d end up getting trashed after a while and you’d probably just lay rocks on top it at some point. The grass/plants under the panels can actually help cool them. There are lots of studies showing this if you look around at “agrivoltaics”.

GL with the project and I look forward to seeing it come along.

#5

@VoskCoin coin I based my system off 80% capacity as well. I have not seen this specifically called out anywhere. That could have changed in the last few years, but you will never see (likely never) 100% capacity solar production for a defined “continuous use”. Therefore, you should actually be able to use full 100% capacity of your service. I have seen TWO state/municipal entities here do this and not go by the 80% rule. I had a hard time verifying this myself when I was installing solar and was not aware of the two cases I just mentioned so I abided by the 80%. I would hit this research hard and I think it’ll pay off for you.