How much electricity does a home and industrial mining farm consume? How much electricity does a mining farm consume?

It may seem that investments in a mining farm are limited only to expensive equipment. However, it is not! You should also take into account energy costs, which will be enormous. In addition to the fact that energy is consumed by numerous adapters and video cards, the same consumption goes to cooling the room where all this is installed. Mining is a very energy-intensive business.
Below we discuss in detail how much electricity a mining farm consumes and how this affects the miner’s income.

The essence of mining

First you need to find out what mining is in general. From English the word mining is translated as “mining”.
Today, many miners and Internet users are engaged in the extraction of electronic currency (for example, Bitcoin). They use specific programs and powerful computers.
In the process of performing various computer tasks on a computer online, users mine bitcoins or other electronic currencies.
During the extraction of electronic currencies, the processor is very heavily loaded, which leads to a large consumption of electrical energy and the intensive release of a huge amount of heat.

Electricity, in addition to investing in expensive equipment, is considered the main resource needed to receive cryptocurrencies at home.

Therefore, before you start mining electronic currency, you need to determine how much electricity the cryptocurrency farm consumes.

How much electricity in kW does a mining farm consume?

For example, a cryptocurrency farm runs on 6 video cards. Such a farm consumes 500 W, and the price for 1 kWh is on average 4 rubles.
With the current price of Bitcoin at $11,300, the mining farm produces 63 BTC per hour, which is approximately 1,429 rubles in 24 hours.
When calculating electrical consumption of 2.5 kW, we subtract 240 rubles. for electrical energy per day. As a result, the miner’s profit for 1 day is 1189 rubles. The monthly profit of such a miner is 35,670 rubles.
But you should remember that the supply of electricity to the house can be stopped at any time, and the computer can break down. Also, token mining processes regularly become more complicated, and as a result, mining becomes slower and more expensive.

How much electrical energy does one miner consume?

For example, you can consider the work of the Antminer T9 miner. This is one of the famous internet users on the World Wide Web. I use this player to mine Bitcoin. With this kind of mining, an online user consumes 1690 W of energy. Thus, in 1 day he spends 40.56 kWh.
With the average price of electrical energy being 4 rubles. per kWh, a miner spends 141 rubles per day, which is equal to 4259 rubles per month, and 51815 rubles per year.
With the current complexity of cryptocurrency mining, an Antminer T9 user receives 0.0023 BTC per hour, which at the current rate is $25.99 or 1,463 rubles. As a result, the monthly income is approximately 43,800 rubles.

How much does a mining farm consume per month in different countries?

The developer of various online projects, the German scientist M. Strube, calculated the energy consumption of the entire global mining network. He found that mining equipment consumes 1.17 terawatt-hours of electricity per month. So, Slovenia consumes 1.08 terawatt-hours of electricity per month.

When mining electronic currencies, an amount of electricity is generated that is equal to the volume of 7.6 million tons of harmful substances with carbon dioxide emitted into the Earth’s atmosphere. According to the calculations of this scientist, the same amount of gas from the exhaust from the rear pipe is formed by an ordinary car after driving 43,000,000,000 km.

Strube calculated that, for example, in Germany mining tokens is not a profitable business, because in such a country electricity is very expensive. There, 1 kWh costs 29 Euro cents (20.2 rubles). If all mining equipment were located in Germany, then 4,220,000,000 euros would have to be paid for electricity per year.
Today, approximately 657 thousand new electronic bitcoins are mined per year, so such a business in Germany would ultimately turn out to be unprofitable, rather than profitable.
Due to the high price of electrical energy in Europe, cryptocurrency farms are often created in exotic cold or warm countries. So, in Iceland kWh costs 10 cents Euro (6.9 rubles). It’s always cold in this country, so you don’t need to spend a lot of money on air conditioners.
Another optimal country for locating a mining enterprise is considered Venezuela. In this warm southern country, electricity is even cheaper than in cold northern Iceland. As a result, Venezuelans are actively purchasing video cards and making a profit of $3,000 per month from token mining.
However, today players such as the Chinese completely control the mining market. IN China 6 large cryptocurrency world pools have been created and more than 50% of the world's bitcoins are mined in this state.

Every day, users spend the same amount of electricity mining bitcoins as 520,000 Canadian residents;
when mining bitcoins, they spend the same amount of electrical energy as all the inhabitants of the Republic of Congo;
when mining bitcoins, miners consume more electricity than each state from 166 world countries;
The electricity spent on Bitcoin is enough for a long voyage of 6 Nimitz warships.
The electricity that Bitcoin miners consume in a year is enough to supply electricity to all US homes for just 19 hours;
Bitcoin mining consumes only 20% of the electricity from 1 coal-fired power plant in Taiwan;
The Three Gorges hydroelectric power station in China generates 3 times more electricity than all Bitcoin consumes;
one thermal power plant in the United States generates more electricity than a miner uses to mine bitcoins;
The US NSA's 17 large data processing centers consume more electricity than Bitcoin.
It should also be noted that in 2015, Google consumed 2 times more electricity than Bitcoin currently consumes.

What are the future prospects for electronic currencies?

Today, Bitcoin runs on very cheap electrical energy. Users, competing with each other, are fighting for low electrical consumption. As a result, any online user who consumes electricity above average closes his own cryptocurrency farm due to lack of profitability.

As a result, cryptocurrency farms are installed where there is a large amount of electricity, where it cannot be stored in anything or exported.
Gas, oil products and coal are easy to export, so users do not install mining servers where this is the main source of electrical energy.

As a result, it is more profitable to sell such resources to places where they are bought at a high price.
In states where there is practically no export of oil and gas (in particular, in states that do not have access to the ocean or sea), bitcoin is also produced using electrical energy. But most online users take electricity from hydroelectric power plants, geysers and thermal springs, which cannot be transported or left in some warehouse.
Miners will continue to work in places where there is cheap electricity.
Today, mining tokens in a city or large regional center is considered not a profitable business. As a result, the consumer spends more electricity on operating the air conditioner or heating water than the miner can do.

Forecast for the future

For several years now, electronic currency miners have been faced with the acute issue of electrical energy consumption.
After all, for the stable operation of a mining network, large capacities are needed; computer equipment developers regularly increase the number of special boards for mining electronic currencies (in particular, bitcoins), and they are all very energy-consuming.

An ecologist from the Dutch University of Leiden, S. Ditman, made the following conclusion: by 2020, the production of Bitcoin tokens or other currencies will require the same amount of electricity as, for example, Denmark will consume over this entire period.

This scientist tried to calculate how much electricity would be needed to mine Bitcoin tokens by 2020.
Over the past 7 years, the mining ecological system has grown greatly. Special equipment for mining electronic currencies has become much more modern and efficient. At the same time, electricity consumption has increased significantly.
This is a normal situation, because the amount of electrical energy consumed is directly related to the power of the computer equipment.

Today, mining electronic currencies has begun to consume so much electricity that in most countries, mining coins at home has become virtually impossible due to constantly rising electricity costs.

As a result, many miners are afraid that token production will soon stop forever.

In his own article, the ecologist cited two forecasts of electrical consumption - positive and negative. Given that token mining technology is becoming increasingly cheaper in terms of energy consumption, equipment for coin mining is rapidly being improved, and devices that consume a lot of energy are slowly being forced out of the market.
As a result, global token mining growth will slow down in the future. In fact, such a scenario will lead to a slowdown in the growth of global energy consumption.
However, it is considered most likely second negative forecast to reduce the efficiency of mining electronic currencies. Due to the impending decrease in the block reward in the future, the total energy consumption in the Bitcoin network will actually reach the same level of electrical consumption as in the entire country of Denmark.
In other words, energy consumption during token mining will only increase, even with positive developments.

While mining, which at first glance seems like an opportunity for endless earnings, is actually a very energy-intensive process.

First, you need to understand what the essence of mining is. From English mining is translated as “mining”. Indeed, miners literally mine valuable currency, they just use software and special computers for this. By solving complex mathematical problems with computers, miners receive bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies.

The process of mining cryptocurrencies puts a lot of stress on processors, which leads to high electricity consumption and high heat generation. Electricity is the main resource needed for cryptocurrency mining - all equipment consumes a huge amount of electricity.

Therefore, before you start mining cryptocurrency, you need to find out how much electricity the mining farm consumes.

How much does the mining farm consume in kW?

Let's take as an example a farm of 6 video cards. Such a farm consumes approximately 500W, and the price for electricity is on average 4 rubles. With a Bitcoin price of $15,000 at the time of writing, the farm will generate 92.9 BTC per hour, which is 2,229.63 rubles per day. When calculating electricity consumption of 2.5 kilowatts, we subtract 240 rubles for electricity per day. Thus, the net income of the farm per day will be 1989.63 rubles. With this calculation, the farm will bring in 59,689.15 rubles per month. But you need to remember that the electricity may go out and the computer may break. In addition, mining processes are constantly being improved, which means the process of mining coins is slowing down.

How much electricity does a single miner consume?

For example, let's take a single-type miner Antminer T9. This is one of the most popular miners in the crypto world. This miner is used to mine Bitcoin. It requires up to 1690 W of energy. It will consume 40.56 kWh per day. With an average price of electricity of 4 rubles per kilowatt-hour, a miner will spend 141 rubles per day, which will be 4259 rubles per month, and 51815 rubles per year. With the current difficulty of bitcoin mining, Antminer T9 produces 0.0023 BTC per hour, which at the current exchange rate (the date of writing this article is December 7, 2017) is $34.48 or 2042 rubles. Thus, the miner’s monthly income will be 57,001 rubles.

How much does a mining farm consume per month in different countries?

The founder of many projects, mathematician Moritz Strube from Berlin, calculated the electricity consumption of the entire network. The mathematician estimates that worldwide, mining equipment consumes 1.17 terawatt-hours of electricity per month. For example, Slovenia consumes 1.08 terawatt-hours of electricity per month.

Bitcoin mining requires an amount of energy approximately equal to the emission of 7.6 million tons of carbon dioxide into the environment. According to mathematician calculations, this is the amount of exhaust gas emitted by a middle-class car after 43.6 billion km.

The scientist calculated that in Germany mining will not pay for itself due to the too high price of electricity. There, 1 kWh costs 29 euro cents (20.6 rubles). If all mining equipment was located in Germany, then 4.22 billion euros would have to be paid for electricity per year. Considering that only 657,000 new bitcoins are mined per year, mining in this country would be unprofitable.

Due to the high price of electricity in Europe, mining farms are usually located in exotic countries. For example, in Iceland, kWh costs 10 euro cents (7.1 rubles). The country is cold, so you don't need to spend any effort on cooling.

Another profitable location for a mining farm is Venezuela. Electricity there is even cheaper than in Iceland. Local residents are actively purchasing video cards and making up to $3,000 net per month.

But, of course, the power in the mining market belongs to the Chinese. There are 6 of the largest mining pools there and more than half of the world’s bitcoins are mined in the Middle Kingdom.

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To mine cryptocurrencies, miners have to expend a large amount of electricity necessary for the operation of specialized devices. The calculations required to open transaction blocks load video cards, processors and ASIC equipment, not only do you have to connect devices, but also connect cooling systems. Electricity for mining is of great importance.

The amount of energy consumed depends on the hash, the type of connected card and the device requests. Crypto miners operating in Russia spend about 10% of their profits to pay for consumed electricity. Reducing consumption is possible by setting a Power Limit or choosing an altcoin that does not require a full device load.

To understand how much it will cost the user to work as a miner, you need to start from the most popular ASIC Antminer T9 device. The cost of this equipment is up to 2.5 thousand dollars. The consumption of a specialized gadget reaches 1700 W/hour. For uninterrupted operation during the day, 40.8 kW will be required.

Monthly expenses will be the same amount multiplied by 30 and the cost of electricity in the region. If you have several devices, you will have to multiply the resulting numbers by the number of special equipment used in the farm.

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To calculate electrical energy consumption, you need to determine what is included in the farm and what devices will be required. For a farm using 8 video cards, 1200 W will be required. One motherboard consumes 40 W processor 100 W, RAM - 5 W, SSD drive - 40 W. In total, the entire farm consumes 1385 W per hour, 33 kW per 24 hours, and 990 kW per month.

Mining on video cards

Processors and video cards were the main tool for mining digital coins at the dawn of the development of the cryptocurrency era. But the latter are ahead of their competitors in terms of power level. It is important to determine whether the mining costs are justified when using GPUs.

There are several most popular GPU models that can pay for themselves relatively quickly:

GTX 1080T, 28 MH/sec with power consumption of 180 W;
RX 580; 26 MH/sec, 185 W;
RX 570; 25 MH/sec, 150 W.

Every day the difficulty of mining major cryptocurrencies is increasing, and the relevance of video cards is gradually decreasing. When using a farm of the average 6 GPUs, you will have to pay approximately 4 rubles per 500 W. The cost of Bitcoin is about 6.97 thousand dollars.

Under the described conditions, the profit from a number of devices per day will be a little more than 1 thousand rubles. Taking into account the electricity consumption of 240 rubles per day, the approximate net income will be above 750 rubles. Monthly profit with such expenses will not exceed 22,500 rubles. But it is important to note that no one guarantees an uninterrupted supply of electricity and the absence of computer breakdowns.

Mining on ASICs

ASIC devices were designed specifically for mining digital assets. Such equipment is aimed at cryptocurrencies based on the SHA-256, X11 and Scrypt algorithms. The range of miners is regularly expanding. The average consumption of such devices ranges from 750 to 1400 W/h. The equipment consists of boards with microprocessors and an effective cooling system. The operation of this ecosystem requires a lot of energy.

ASIC miners require high power consumption. For this reason, for full payback, you need to work without shutdowns or failures for at least a year. Crypto miners who practice their craft at home often have difficulties with wiring. The power consumption of popular ASIC devices exceeds that of simple video cards:

Antminer S9, 14 TH/sec, 1400 W;
BitFury B8, 50 TH/sec, 6400 W;
Halong Mining Dragonmint, 16 TH/sec, 1600W.

At home, cryptocurrency mining is becoming less and less profitable every day. To make money from this craft, you have to regularly buy new equipment and place it on a mining farm. As productivity increases, so does the level of responsibility and the need for high-quality cooling and power supplies.

To reduce the cost of mining digital coins, you need to look for regions that offer affordable energy prices. In Russia, the most attractive conditions for cooperation are in the Irkutsk region, where tariffs vary within 1 ruble per 1 kWh. The cost of electricity in different regions changes periodically; it is important for miners to monitor the situation so that the cryptocurrency mining procedure is as profitable as possible.

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Regional electricity cost

In Russia, the price of electricity remains relatively low (around $48 per MW), and the cold climate allows one to naturally reduce the cost of cooling the farm. The average annual temperature in the country is -3.7 ˚C. Internet speed is 37 Mbit/sec, but it is enough for full-fledged extraction of digital assets. There are several of the most accessible regions for crypto miners:

Irkutsk A region of Russia that is advantageous in terms of low cost of electricity. Its cost is within 1 ruble, the payback on local farms is the fastest. There are no preferential zones for mining cryptocurrencies with the PoW algorithm, but even in this situation, Irkutsk is a good place for domestic miners.
Khakassia. The cost of electricity is within 2-3 rubles. But, despite the high cost compared to the previous region, the activities of crypto miners here are more profitable than in the central part of the country.
Crimea. Life in the disputed territory is much more pleasant than in Siberia, but a number of restrictions are imposed on local IP addresses that will become an obstacle to stable operation. The price of electricity within 2-3 rubles per kWh attracts miners.

Among other profitable regions, we note Khanty-Mansiysk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, which will help you mine digital coins at no extra cost.

Interesting facts about mining costs

Every day, the extraction of the main cryptocurrency requires the same amount of energy as consumed by 520 thousand residents of Canada and the entire state of Congo. The existence of the Bitcoin payment network requires more resources than each of the more than 150 countries on the planet requires. The electricity used by Bitcoin miners can power six analogues of the Nimitz aircraft carrier.

The annual consumption of the Bitcoin network will only provide 19 hours for US residents. For the existence of the main cryptocurrency, 1/5 of the capacity of one of the Taiwanese coal power plants is enough. The Three Gorges Hydroelectric Power Plant, based in China, can power three payment systems similar to Bitcoin. Google's energy consumption is twice that of Bitcoin. Supporting the 17 data centers of the US National Security Agency requires more resources than the ecosystem of the main cryptocurrency.

The Bitcoin network requires 14 terawatt-hours of electricity annually to operate. The Byblis nuclear power plant must operate for five years to provide everyone who wants to receive digital coins of the main cryptocurrency. But there are many other altcoins that also require attention and resources.

German scientists have calculated that mining Bitcoin requires energy equivalent to 7.6 million tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. To emit such emissions, you can drive a car and drive 43.6 billion km.

Mining is a process that requires not only serious initial investments, but also subsequent financial support. And if you can update and upgrade equipment once every few months, then you will have to pay bills for utility tariffs every 30 calendar days. In this article we will calculate what the electricity consumption of a mining farm is and how much you will have to pay.

Electricity consumption of a farm for mining on video cards

So, first you need to determine the composition of the farm and the devices that it includes:

Video cards 8 pcs. (let’s take a farm with 8 video cards installed) – 1200 W.
Motherboard 1 pc. - about 40 W.
Processor 1 pc. - about 100 W.
SSD disk 1 pc. – about 40 W.
RAM 1 pc. – about 5 W.

The total hourly consumption of the entire farm will be: 1385 W or 1.4 kWh. In terms of the daily electricity consumption of the mining farm, we get 33 kW, and per month – 990 kW. The cost of one kW of electricity in Moscow is 5.40 rubles, and per day this will result in 178 rubles. Per month – 5,340 rubles.

And this is only from one farm with 8 video cards. If there are 2-3 of these, then the costs will be 15-20 thousand rubles.

Electricity consumption of a farm for mining on ASICs

The electricity consumption of an ASIC mining farm is much easier to calculate. To do this, we need only one indicator - the consumption of the device itself. For example, for Antminer L3+, power consumption is 880 W, taking into account losses on the block. This will be 21.12 kW per day, and 633.6 kW per month. In terms of Moscow tariffs, we get 3,422 rubles.

Of course, the electricity consumption of a mining farm is far from the largest cost item, especially when compared to the purchase of equipment and its updating, but it is worth remembering. Even if you have a profit of 500-600 dollars, you will have to save about 20-30% of your total income.

Mining farms in 2020 will consume more electricity than humanity produces today, the publishing house Grist claims, citing calculations. Is this true and is it dangerous?

Mining farms and blockchain system

It works at the same time simple and complex: transactions are recorded on computers on the network. When buying pizza with Bitcoin, a person receives confirmation of payment not via SMS to the phone, but as an encrypted recording. As the number of users increases, more computing power is required to process transactions. In 2009, Bitcoin was mined on a home computer in the background. Now the most powerful PC will not be suitable for mining - the video card will fail from overload.

Electricity consumption

Today, mining farms consume 0.14% of energy consumption. The figure is not impressive, but it is higher than the energy expenditures of Denmark or Ireland and equal to the expenditures of Belarus. If you move mining farms to Russia, they will take up three percent of energy resources. And if miners create their own state, where mining farms account for 100% of government costs, electricity consumption will be greater than the costs of 60% of existing countries.

Researchers believe this is negligible compared to what the blockchain will need in two years. If the network continues to grow at the current pace, by February 2020, the calculation of Bitcoin transactions will require more electricity than humanity produces.

Analytics

Grist is just a publication that may make mistakes. Brokers, bank heads and presidents do not give an accurate forecast. Expecting it from the media is stupid.
The number of mining farms will not grow at the same pace, as Grist writes. New farms will be built as long as mining is profitable. If the farm does not pay off, it becomes an unprofitable business project. If you really need a lot of electricity, the costs will be huge.

But what if mining farms really require a lot of electricity, and it will be in short supply? Bitcoin will not provide for itself and will collapse?

No. The production technology can be influenced, so the system will not allow such a scenario. Energy costs will continue to rise, but if mining is no longer efficient, the difficulty threshold will drop, fees and block value will increase, which encourages people to build new mining farms.

What if there is enough electricity for transactions?

For example, scientists will finally create and find a new source of energy in the next ten years. The power problem will be solved - the network will have enough energy for operations. But a new problem arises - if maintaining the blockchain becomes easier, mining farms will become unprofitable. Calculations will be performed on all connected computers. Mining will not require investment, but will bring a couple of cents.

On the other hand, non-profitability is not a problem. Making a profit for using currency is a fabulous luxury. We don't receive a penny of commission for using fiat currency, but it exists. The work will be supported by charitable mining farms, which, like the Red Cross, will receive small profits, but will bring enormous benefits to humanity.