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Reducing your mining cost can be done in a verity of ways and is part of Cryptocurrency Mining, you should always keep a close eye on your costs. keeping cost low and output high is the ultimate goal and can make or break a mining operation.
This subject should be taken seriously regardless of being an ASCI Miner, CPU Miner or GPU Miner, or maybe you cover all aspects of crypto mining. All consume electricity with the end goal being as much Cryptocurrency coin as possible.
Whether you are Increasing CPU mining efficiency or Increasing GPU Mining efficiency its worth spending some time, effort and maybe a little FIAT on this subject. It could save you much more in the long run.
What can you look at to reduce your Electricity Bill/Cost?
This is something every cryptocurrency miner should spend some time researching. An Incorrect setup, expensive utility provider or waster heat (in the colder months) will all cost you FIAT or even worse, your favourite Cryptocurrency coin.
- Reducing your electricity cost per electricity unit
- Use a Supplyer with Night timetariffs
- Knowing the running cost of your Mining Rigs
- Reusing the heat created by your miners
- Improving your mining rigs efficiency
- Using Solar Power
How can reducing your electricity cost per unit help?
Reducing your cost of electric (billed per unit) can lead to significant cost reductions. The average home user does not switch often and can be on the same provider for years. If you are new to Cryptocurrency Mining then you will notice an increase on your utility bill. At first it can be a small amount for 1 Rig but as soon as you increase to 2+ it starts to get serious.
Mine at Night, find an energy supplier that has reduced rate at nigh time. Some suppliers charge less than 25% of the day time rate at night.
Always shop around every 12-18 months for a cheaper supplier. Checking the energy comparison sites is the best way but then always double check the deals by going direct to the suppler. Comparison sites don’t always get it right. Also, always be confutable with any contract durations, you may not want to tie in for too long as energy fluctuates almost as much as cryptocurrency.
How much does it cost to run a Cryptocurrency Miner?
All Cryptocurrency Mining costs electricity and depending on what style of mining you wish do; it will consume different amounts of electricity. However, this does not have any connection to profits, as in, just because you consume more power its assumed you make more profits, there is no correlation between the two.
| Mining Type | Power Consumption (Watt) |
|---|---|
| GPU Mining 1x 1660 Super (Standard) | 125 |
| GPU Mining 1x 1660 Super (tuned) | 75 |
| GPU Mining 1x 2060 (Standard) | 130 |
| GPU Mining 1x 2060 (tuned) | 85 |
| Low End CPU Mining (Standard) | 100 |
| Low End CPU Mining (Tuned) | 75 |
| High End CPU Mining | 280 |
| ASIC BitMain L3+ (Standard 504Mhz) | 800 |
| MasterNode Server (8 Coins) | 250 |
Once you know the approx. power draw of your miner and with the cost per unit that you pay for electricity you can use an online electricity cost calculator to approximate the cost for 1 month.
How to use the heat from Your Cryptocurrency Miner
Energy is never lost; it’s just transformed and with Mining the excess energy is transformed into heat. Some Mining Rigs can give of a tremendous amount of heat, you can get a rough idea about this by looking at the wattage consumed of the Rig.
A miner consuming 1000w of electricity is going to give off way more excess heat that a 100w miner. You can also assume that a 1000w miner is going to require way more cooling and create way more noise than the 100w miner. All things to consider when mining at home.
Over the years I have created a few “Heating” Rigs that were so quite I placed them in my living room and dining room and they went unnoticed for years.
The Silent SilverFish 25MHs Miner
The first one I completed was a bit ugly looking but did the job, it was based on a noisy SilverFish 25Mh/s Scrypt Miner i used to mine LiteCoin and DOGE Coin. I placed this on the top of a built in cabinet in my dining room and it kept the place very warm.
The Silent Innosilicon A4 Dominator
The second quite miner I created was an Innosilicon A4 Dominator that consisted of 2x circuit boards with huge aluminium heat sink attached. These were placed in a tube and air forced through them making a vacuum cleaner style sound level, no good for a room you would sit and watch TV in.
I removed the boards and mounted them into a new case and so produced the Silent Innosilicon A4 Dominator Miner that i placed on top of my Storage & TV Media Unit in the front room. Again, this went unnoticed for over a year before I upgrade to Bitmain L3+ Miners.
How to Improving your Mining Rigs Efficiency with 5 easy tips
- Buy Gold or Platinum Spec PSUs – Select the wattage of the PSU to be double of what you need, Load to be at 50-60% Max
- Reduce the Core Voltage (vCore) of your CPU – See How to Increase Electricity Efficiency While CPU Mining
- Reduce the Voltage of your Memory – See How to Increase Electricity Efficiency While CPU Mining
- Reduce the Power Limit / Core Voltage of your GPU – See How to Increase Electricity Efficiency While GPU Mining
- Puchase Low Power Components like SSD, CPUs with low package rating, Low Volt Memory and Low AMP fans.
Use Solar Power / Wind Power to Power Your Rigs
Every miner’s dream and I have dreamed about this a lot. Only really feasible if your house has a good amount of land attached to it so you can setup some panels or a wind turbine. For city miners this is only a dream as you will not have enough area to cover in panels or the planning department will block a wind turbine.
You can however by solar for your roof that will help offset some of the cost but the return on investment is 7-10 years.