Getting Solar Panels in Ireland Payback time with Crypto Mining
I recently came across a couple of blog posts about getting solar panels in Ireland. Part 1 one and Part 2 Excellent posts. You can defintely save money and do your bit for global warming.
The main calculation is in part 1
So let’s get to the bottom line savings.
Conservatively we can easily cut our electricity cost in half over a year; this includes the standing change and other levies that we cannot avoid. This is a saving of approx €750 per year, along with saving approx €600 on oil.
We are on track to save €1,350 per year in energy costs.
The system’s total net cost after the grant was €7,500, a 5.5-year repayment timeline. This, to me, is pretty favourable.
After that breakeven point, any reduction in costs is pure savings.
This is a post-tax return too as it's a saving. Where else can you get an 18% post-tax return? Your pre-tax return is even better. ie, to earn €1350 to spend on electricity, you need to gross, €2500, so your pre-tax payback time is more like 3 years. This depends on your usage and the amount of sun. Kel seems to use a large amount of electricity. Even if you are saving €500 a year it's still worth doing.
Selling back to the grid
It even gets better. In the summer of 2021, it's expected the grid will buy back up to 30% of the excess energy you produce. The unit rate will probably be low but as its excess electricity, it's pure profit. In the UK, you’ll get 5.24p per unit of electricity. To buy electricity in the UK it costs on average 17.2p/ kWh. It's a similar price to Ireland so I'd assume the grid in Ireland will pay a similar feed-in rate.
Mining Crypto
The alternative to selling it back to the grid is to mine crypto. At the time of writing, it's still possible to make money mining certain cryptocurrencies on your computer as long as you have a good graphics card. If you go to https://www.sparkpool.com/token/ETH you can calculate how much you can make. Find your hash rate here. It's heavily dependent on the price of crypto and the electricity costs but if you are getting free/ cheap electricity, you can profit from it.
Where to begin
Definitely read Mrs Smart Money's blog posts on it. Visit the SEAI website and find an installer.
Ben has a BEng (Hons) in Computer Science and 20 years of experience in online marketing, specialising in SEO, lead generation and affiliate marketing. After spending over a decade as an igaming affiliate, he has decided to concentrate on GA4 training and SEO Audits.
