How Much Electricity Does Cryptomining Use?
Salad Chefs often ask us how much electricity it takes to Chop on Salad, and whether it’s worth it for them. Everyone’s rig will use different amounts of juice, but there are a few ways to break down the decision using what you know about your setup.
Cost of Mining
There’s a relatively simple formula to figuring out your mining cost:
cost of mining = peak power consumption * time spent mining
If your cost exceeds the income generated, you might consider upgrading your hardware. You could also try some of the mitigation tips below to see if there’s another factor at work hampering your crypto earnings.
Otherwise, you should have the green light to mine to your heart’s content — but peak power consumption is where things start to get murky.
How to Gauge Power Consumption
Let’s find some good round numbers to work with. Scrounge up a recent utilities bill to get your average cost per kilowatt-hour, and then approximate your rig’s electricity needs using one of the following resources:
Once you’ve got a ballpark figure, plug that into an Energy Usage Calculator to estimate the power draw of a typical mining session.
One of our Chefs hails from the mythical land of Scotland, where electricity runs a measly $0.05/kWh. If his system is kitted out with a GTX 1050 Ti drawing 240 watts, he’ll pay $0.24 running at full steam. Spreading his work across multiple mining protocols should net him a healthy profit, thanks to renewable energy.
Let’s say Bob’s PC requires 786 watts to run. If he mines for ten hours every day at a cost of $0.10/kWh, his daily mining cost is about $0.79. He ought to compare that to his mining profits to see if his rig truly has the chops to Chop.
Making Informed Choices
Numerous factors influence whether or not any given machine is profitable. To make things more complicated, variables like crypto prices and electricity rates can change on the daily. Always consider these questions when making a decision:
- Which coin are you mining?
- What are your local energy rates?
- How efficient is your hardware?
- How powerful is your hardware?
- Are your drivers optimized and updated?
- Do you mine during peak hours, or after?
A resource like WhatToMine can be useful for gauging profitability relative to the juice you’re using — though we don’t suggest going by their earnings estimates.
Mitigating Mining Costs
New coins gain in value, only to sink the next month. Other prices are more reliable, but that means more miners will want to cash in — and more miners means network difficulty explodes. It’s tough to give advice that isn’t outdated as soon as hits the page.
As good rules of thumb, you should mine at optimal times and strive for maximum hardware efficiency. Here’s some general advice to help mitigate mining costs:
- be sure to update your drivers regularly
- upgrade your rig with energy-efficient hardware
- plan your mining time for off-peak hours
- research renewable energy sources on your grid
Though you’ll still need to check electricity rates and maintain your PC, Salad handles some of the headache for you.
Every time you Chop, we find the most profitable pool to point your rig at, based on your specs and current network difficulties across our supported coins. And the Kitchen is tailor-made to mine a number of different cryptocurrencies, so volatility won’t prevent you from leveling up your game.
By Jared Carpenter and Keith Cagney.
