Bitcoin Mining Electricity Costs

Your electricity costs will far exceed other Bitcoin mining costs. You must know your power costs to understand the profitability of your mining operation.

If separately metered electric circuits power your mining rigs and you receive a separate electricity bill for them, you are done. You know your electricity costs. Skip the rest of this page.

Measuring Miner Electricity Usage

You could rely on manufacturers’ specifications to estimate power consumption, but your power supplies and mining environment can cause your mining rigs’ electricity usage to vary from their specs.

You should measure the actual power usage of your Bitcoin mining rigs. Plug your miner into Kill A Watt or a similar power measuring device.

The buttons cycle through various measurements. Of greatest interest are watts, the instantaneous power usage, and KWH, the cumulative power usage measured in kilowatt-hours.

The Cost of Electricity

Next you need to know how much you pay for a kilowatt-hour of electricity. Usually this information is on your electric bill. My residential energy provider, Dominion Virginia Power, shows only the total kilowatt-hours and various costs.

Use a spreadsheet to track your electric bill for a few months. Enter the month, electricity used (in kWh), and the cost (in dollars) into a table.

Plot the values to confirm that the rate is stable during your study period. Some utility companies change rates for summer and winter.

Compute the slope of the plotted line with the formula

=SLOPE(Electricity_Bills[Cost],Electricity_Bills[kWh])

Electricity cost me about 11.3 cents per kilowatt-hour in summer 2017.

Follow the instructions for your Kill a Watt to set the rate to your kilowatt-hour cost. The Kill a Watt will show your total electricity cost so far and will estimate your costs for future hours, days, weeks, months, and years.