Using Green Energy?

[Ramiro Montoya III]

I know I probably came to the wrong place to ask about this, but a serious question came to mind while watching Youtube, can you use a off-grid solar panel set up to power some of the tech used in a PC case? (Fans, LED's, RGB LEDS? Small wattage items) Or even doing a little bit ghetto style cooling (Window A/C Units, Portable A/C Units) to cool a room or/cooling pc for decent gaming temperatures, and maybe even chill to cool room temperatures to save on main A/C in the house?

[Christophe Corazza]

7 minutes ago, Ramiro Montoya III said:

I know I probably came to the wrong place to ask about this, but a serious question came to mind while watching Youtube, can you use a off-grid solar panel set up to power some of the tech used in a PC case? (Fans, LED's, RGB LEDS? Small wattage items) Or even doing a little bit ghetto style cooling (Window A/C Units, Portable A/C Units) to cool a room or/cooling pc for decent gaming temperatures, and maybe even chill to cool room temperatures to save on main A/C in the house?

 

I don't see why that wouldn't work.

You would use the solar panel(s) to charge a battery that - on its turn - powers your PC.

Powering your PC directly from the solar panels would be a bad idea though. One minor power drop (e.g. a clouds blocking the sun) and your PC might go down.

[asus killer]

you could get a combination of solar panels, windmills (they are also sold to domestic use) and energy from the grid (when the other 2 fail) to do it.

[Canada EH]

34 minutes ago, Ramiro Montoya III said:

can you use a off-grid solar panel set up to power some of the tech used in a PC case? (Fans, LED's, RGB LEDS? Small wattage items) Or even doing a little bit ghetto style cooling (Window A/C Units, Portable A/C Units) to cool a room or/cooling pc for decent gaming temperatures, and maybe even chill to cool room temperatures to save on main A/C in the house?

Yes you can use solar.

5 hours of direct sunlight in a sunny state like California you can calculate it this way: 5 hours x 290 watts (a wattage of a premium solar panel) = 1,450 watts or roughly 1.5 kilowatt-hours (kwh). Thus each solar panel in your system would produce a little over 500-550 kWh of energy per year.

[Guest]

My parents use solar power in their holiday house. Makes about 3 (cloudy) to 7 KW/h. 

[Jurrunio]

If you're in a sunny place, then maybe. Powering an AC unit is definitely a no though, those are far more power hungry.

[manikyath]

in theory you can power everything with solar (or wind for that matter), the issue is the amount of power you get for the money you need to sink in.

in a fairly crude example you could get a no-compromises off-the-grid solar solution for a fully kitted house for roughly the same price as a diesel generator and probably a year's worth of fuel.

 

for just powering a computer there's other parameters that come into play like the expected amount of hours per day you'd want to be running, the exact wattage you're expected to use, how much of that would be during daylight hours, and so on. but yes, if you wanna toss several thousand dollars at going off the grid, its perfectly possible.

[Canada EH]

7 hours ago, RorzNZ said:

3 (cloudy) to 7 KW/h

3kw to 7kw per hour

 

wow that must be a lot of solar panels.

why do they need so much?

[Christophe Corazza]

7 minutes ago, CK1968 said:

At the same time you can get some exercise

 

Hahaha, while you're gaming? 

[Ezzy-525]

6 minutes ago, Christophe Corazza said:

 

Hahaha, while you're gaming? 

Pair it with VR games and you're golden!

[Christophe Corazza]

5 minutes ago, Ezzy-525 said:

Pair it with VR games and you're golden!

 

That's the next big thing in VR:

Powering your expensive VR setup by manual labour since you haven't got any budget left for the electricity bill 

[Christophe Corazza]

4 minutes ago, CK1968 said:

Yes and it is also a portable model that you can take everywhere

 

You'll definitely steal the show at a LAN party with that one though 

Who needs a setup with core i9 with 2 Titans running in SLI to grab attention... if you have this? 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Canada EH said:

3kw to 7kw per hour

 

wow that must be a lot of solar panels.

why do they need so much?

Off the grid 

[Canada EH]

https://www.electricchoice.com/blog/electricity-on-average-do-homes/

Average Electricity Requirements Per State

Alaska – 632 kWh Per Month

Montana – 860 kWh Per Month

Nevada – 924 kWh Per Month

Highest - Louisiana – 1,273 kWh Per Month

Lowest - Hawaii – 515 kWh Per Month

[Maurer]

Search YouTube and you can find videos where people have set up but coin mining farms with solar panels. The panels charge a battery which them supplies the power to the electrical grid than powers the mining rigs.

 

It is an expensive investment at first, but pays itself off after some time. As for being green, there is the environmental impact of the battery chemicals to consider when replacing the batteries.

[Canada EH]

backwards way of doing things dont you think @Maurer ?

 

Well I've heard news reports of grow ops stealing industrial generators for middle of nowhere criminal activity.

 

But gosh why on earth would anyone want to do do solar bit mining, I mean I have heard of people moving to dirt cheap electricity rate states even 3rd world countries to mine. Most likely there are criminals out there stealing graphics cards to mine and stealing generators and stealing gas all to mine.

 

But 7kwh is crazy high!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just imagine the batteries required to hold multi-10's of kw-hours. A typical golf cart is 12V 150Ah in a flooded lead acid battery, probably costing $250usd.

[mr moose]

I wouldn't bother trying to run just fans and coolers from solar, I would save and install a 12V solar system and battery capable of running your modem/router and low voltage lights (something that can maintain 300W usage 24/7 should do it).  That way if the mains power goes out you still have internet, wifi and some lights while not paying for the power to run them the rest of the time.  

[Maurer]

18 hours ago, Canada EH said:

backwards way of doing things dont you think @Maurer ?

 

Well I've heard news reports of grow ops stealing industrial generators for middle of nowhere criminal activity.

 

But gosh why on earth would anyone want to do do solar bit mining, I mean I have heard of people moving to dirt cheap electricity rate states even 3rd world countries to mine. Most likely there are criminals out there stealing graphics cards to mine and stealing generators and stealing gas all to mine.

 

But 7kwh is crazy high!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just imagine the batteries required to hold multi-10's of kw-hours. A typical golf cart is 12V 150Ah in a flooded lead acid battery, probably costing $250usd.

I saw a really good video once of a guy who did a solar panel setup for his miners and I wish I could link it. The intent of the set up was to reduce the power consumption when electorial rates are higher and run on the battery and than switch to your standard power grid when rates are lower. 

 

Besides the fact he is earning a decent rate from the mining, he reduces his  overhead  means more overall return from mining.

 

In reality, I don't think you could go straight green to power a PC without a battery. The main problems you would run into would be a consistent power generation to meet the PC demands and keeping minor voltage fluctuations stable to prevent crashing.

[Blasteque]

As a matter of curiosity, I ran some numbers for myself.  The calculations below are based upon whole-house use, so not the situation as OP described, but the equations are linear.  This means the break-even period should be about the same (assuming I didn't mess something up...).

 

Ok, here's some rough numbers I threw together in a couple minutes of googling:

1. I live in Washington state where we us an average of  1041kwh per month.

2. Electricity here is about $0.08 per kwh.

3. Home depot has 265w panels for $424 (panels only).

4. I'm going to guess we have about 10 hr of usable sunlight per day on average.

So, 10hr x 30 days = 300hr.  1041000wh / 300h = 3470w/h generation demand.  3470w/h / 265w = 13 panels needed. 13 panels x $424 = $5512.

1041kwh x $.08/kwh = $84 per month nominal electric bill.  $5512 / 84 = 66 months to break even -- NOT including batteries and infrastructure, just the panels.

 

5.5 years... That's not that bad actually; when adjusted for installation and storage it's probably around 15 years?  When I did this sort of study back in college it was close to 30 years.