I’m running a bunch of GPU based mining rigs that keep my house warn during these cold winter months so I don’t have to use my heat pump. I track power consumption from each breaker and compare to earnings. I also take overall solar production and whole house consumption into consideration (these 2 values are pulled from my Sense), and calculate net power cost and net profit.
I also double check the Sense reported net consumption against what the power company is showing (the columns highlighted in yellow), and I’m impressed that the variance is less than 1 kWh a day on average.
Earnings are way less than they were (as much as $500/day) but I’m still making a bit of profit and heat my house for free. I’m using Brultech equipment to monitor current draw on individual breakers. I have a total of 78 channels available to monitor and plot power consumption from individual breakers.
Here are my top consumers, both in terms of daily kWh, and plotted against time (yesterday’s readings):
Except for the dryer, Sense is categorizing all of it as Always On.
As for the solar panels, I got a total of 128. 56 on my shop roof, 24 next to the shop, and 2 more 24 panel arrays on the hill behind the shop building.
This is such a fun topic that we all keep obsessing over. I enjoyed that @kevin1 was picking apart the monthly Always On vs a single day snapshot.
I followed with a monthly report and a closer look at total consumption that we don’t talk too much about.
So I am looking at an interesting statistic in your monthly report. Your 34.2 kWh total Always On is 3.8% of your total consumption which I further think entitles you to Always On King. Though your total consumption of 900 kWh is not a winner, 3.8% is impressive control of Always On. Kudos! My 48.4 kWh total Always On is 6.8% of my total consumption 712 kWh. Keep in mind once again, that includes the majority of my transportation miles with two EVs. 712 kWh looks impressive by itself until you factor in transportation. Hard to understate that. I am a retired engineer that has spent the last decade refining my usage while not sacrificing lifestyle. Sense is helping me track our journey and refine it.
So shout out to all. What percent is your Always On? For the moment, I give the title to @RyanAtSense with 3.8%! That’s impressive!
Impressive. I am assuming the mining rigs are producing something where the heat is a byproduct you are using for your home.
Heat is a big consumer of energy and the one redundancy that I have. I have both a geothermal heat pump and a pellet stove I use for heating. I program in such a manner that I use the geothermal loop when excess solar energy is available and the pellet stove when solar is not available. Some use pellet boilers with radiant floor heating but I like the stratification. In other words, we like a warm fire to come to after being outside, yet actually enjoy colder bedrooms for sleeping.
Correct. The mining rigs are basically open frame computers with a bunch of high powered graphics cards in them mining various crypto currencies to what is called a mining pool. The GPUs work on encrypting blockchain transactions you could say. There is a lot more to it that than, but for this discussion that is close enough. My high end rigs have 7x 1080Ti GPUs in them and I have their power levels limited to around 180W per card. If I need more heat, I can crank them up to over 220W per card, but I’m finding that even with sub zero temps outside, my entire house remains in the mid to upper 70’s at my current levels.
Here’s a look at my miner dashboard:
So I clear maybe 1 grand a month in net profit after taking power cost into account. At the onset of winter I was heating only with my Trane 20 SEER heat pump, which was a much more efficient means of heating compared to running mining rigs. But when you factor in the earnings, the table is turned. Of course the upfront cost of the mining equipment makes the ROI extremely long in the current market. Fortunately all my rigs are paid off from back when the daily earnings were much higher than today. I was making well over $10k a month back in late 2017/early 2018. All passive income to augment my regular daytime job.
I have radiant floor heat on my lower level. Hot water comes from a Polaris propane fired water heater. But now that I have 2 mining rigs on the lower level, the floor heat rarely comes on.
Back when I was heating the main level with the heat pump, I had the thermostat programmed to 70 degrees during the day and allowed it to drop to 62 at night. That was perfect for me, but the wife would complain it was too cold at night. She really like it now with the rigs keeping temps in the mid 70’s 24/7 although that is a little hot for my taste, especially at night. But if it keeps the wife happy, then I’m happy too.
I used to love having my old video production desktop on the floor in the winter, as it would warm my feet up while I worked. You apparently took that to an extreme.
Yeah, my wife and I live a relatively quiet life in a mid-sized apartment. Luckily, we both are content with setting the thermostat low in the winter, which is a huge help to keeping electricity costs down — electric heating in New England winter an add up quickly, as you can imagine… And smart plugs help a lot to keep those always on devices in check. I’m pretty sure my always on number is >90% accounted for by my networking equipment.
I would like to better understand your comment above. I’m considering installing solar and am part of a committee to select a installer for a co-op that has organized in my area. As a 75 year old who has to manage his budget tightly, I feel torn between not living long enough to get an ROI and doing what’s good for the earth. Would you mind if we exchange emails to communicate about it outside the Sense forum? I can be reached at sense-at-fredwilbur.com
I’m the king today but with an admitted caveat. We had a power outage earlier this week with brief internet connectivity outages since then. It’s just enough to keep sense from calculating a good “always on”. It’s usually between 190 and 240 watts.
Don’t know what’s happening but I’m running into always on going uphill again. I was 356 for several days and that was about 70 watts more than I figured. I was in the 900’s before the fix they sent out. Today it’s climbing again and at 577.
I don’t trust always on and don’t think whatever they are using and how they are figuring it is anywhere close to reality.
@samwooly1, I would say my always on is pretty accurate. I can tell when my 17 year old leaves his box fan on for an extended period. Whenever he has that one for multiple days straight I can see my numbers climb, hopefully whatever bug has you confounded gets ironed out soon.
I also have a teenager with a box fan (daughter). I put a smart plug on it so when she leaves for school, it’s now off. I’m not sure if it was affecting always on but did add 45 watts to other.
That 356 number I had for several days was great in my opinion, at least for us. I don’t understand how it can jump 200 watts seemingly overnight without a change in the home.
Just checking it again shows it has climbed to 577
I noticed my other was higher than I thought it should be along with always on. so went in the daughters bedroom and she figured out dad had a smart plug on her fan. She plugged her fan into another receptacle to bypass me but didn’t say anything.
So maybe I’ve been outsmarted by this 17 year old and she has something always on elsewhere that I’m unaware of.
Maybe you ha e the same @ptmoore
