Can my house's electricity supply be upgraded?

Question

I'm trying to start a business in my house: Cryptomining. Essentially, I will be buying many big power-hungry computers which will print money out of thin air. It's a very lucrative business.

_{(source: coindesk.com)}

Right now my house's utility supply is 200A 120v + 200A 240v, which is 72 kW 48kW total. This means I should be able to use ~32 kW for my equipment aside from all the household appliances. The equipment can accept both voltages and actually is more efficient on 240v.

Can the public electricity supply to my home be upgraded? The house is located in a development off the main road. The wiring runs underground for about 1000 ft. until it connects to the utility pole on the main road. So my guess is a solid "no".

I have considered renting a small warehouse and starting the business there. The problem is, most of the properties I find on real estate search engines (like Loopnet) only have 100 or 200 amp service. I need at least 120 kW in order for moving out of the house to be worthwhile.

What are my options? I know heat dissipation will be a big problem as well, but let's set that aside for a moment.

EDIT: My location is central New Jersey, U.S.A., and my house was built in 1998.

Answer 1

This is an economics game. Electricity is #1.

So the very first conversation you need to have is with the electric company. And you need to cast your nets far and wide: Read this discussion of this rate in Georgia and think about the impact that has on your profitability. For instance the example I mentioned was a 2000 watt continuous load (1440kw/month) - cost $27 (1.8 cent/kwh) winter, and $84 (5.8 cent/kwh) summer. Have I got your undivided attention?

So you need to shop, not even locally, but nationally, for rates like that. And then, you need to go to wherever those rates are. I suspect commercial is out of the question; they'll never give a business rates like that, but ask. And don't give them your real name. Now, moving to another state for those rates may seem unreasonable, but run the numbers before you say that. If you'll make $50k/year extra for doing this in Georgia instead of California, you can learn to like Cracker Barrel and calling all sodas Coke.

Second, think about service into the building. 400A residential service is actually common where all-electric homes exist. That's because the heat pump needs an auxiliary heater, typically 140 amps, for when it's too cold outside for the heat pump to work. Your servers are your aux heat, and your bigger problem is removing heat; your heat pump will be running in A/C mode even in the winter, and you'll need supplemental A/C in the summer. (or better yet, shut it off during the heat of the day; that will dovetail nicely with avoiding those peak load charges.)

Third, think about other uses of the building. I would consider several houses as your facility, to capture those amazing residential rates. That has "AirBnB" written all over it: get a portfolio of vacation homes on a Georgia beach that have back rooms you can secure without wrecking their AirBnB value... and you're making money two ways.

I'd also think about equipment cooling. One very effective strategy is water-cooling the relevant parts. You interchange that outside either to an automotive radiator from a junkyard, or you interchange heat with water drawn from a ground source, or river, lake or ocean shore. Which implies riverfront, lakefront or beach property :)

A few numbers

You want to do this at, at least, 120kw. A 400A home has 96kw of service, so let's get 2 of them, using 60kw and leaving 36kw for household loads and the A/C you'll need. 60kw run continuously is 43200kwh.

In California (.16/kwh) that would cost you about $7000/month x 2 houses = $14,000.

That Georgia rate (.01/kwh and 6.64/kw): $830/month x 2 = $1670.

I don't know how much money you're making from the coin, but saving $12,300 a month is huge.

And even if your venture in cryptocurrency ends up a big bust-out, you've got vacation rental income, and you own some nice properties.

Answer 2

Can the public electricity supply to my home be upgraded?

Sure, contact you electrical utility. Our utility has an upper limit of 350 amp service for a residence but yours may go to 400 amps. I doubt they will go higher but it is possible.

Most utilities will not bring more than one service to a single owned property. Also, most utilities do not have 3 phase service available in residential areas. Your mileage may vary.

If you want to launch this business large to start with, then a 3 phase 400 amp, 480 volt service in a commercial area is probably the minimum entry level. Look for a light industrial, commercial, or mixed use area in your locale that could supply that level of power and be prepared to burn through lots of cash before you become profitable.

Good luck!

Answer 3

After reading all the advice here, I think my best option is to think about the enormous amount of heat generated. The only room for running this equipment in the summer is the garage, and getting so many outlets wired there would cost thousands. Extension cords aren't an option. Air conditioning doubles our power cost. I contacted a HVAC handyman and he said the heat generation would be a problem well before the 200A electric supply would be maxed out. Even in the winter.

I don't have a lot of capital to spare. It's just me and a few college friends, and we are at 1.5 kW right now. So I decided to run everything in the basement at home this fall and winter. It would provide free heating. Meanwhile I'll try to get more investors and capital, and hopefully in May we have enough equipment to move to a small warehouse. At first, the electricity savings might not pay the entire rent, but there are other advantages like taking only a 30 minute drive to fix any technical issues.

At that point, we could move on from GPU mining to ASIC mining, to take advantage of the low power cost. ASIC mining consumes 5x the energy for every dollar of capital. This might make it more profitable than GPU mining.

And although half the miners are in China, Americans and Canadians can still compete because electricity prices are still pretty low. Replacement parts are much easier to get. I just need to automate things and keep labor costs down.