The idea of mining Malairte on free sunshine is genuinely attractive, and at small scale solar power can be one of the cleanest ways to run a rig. But the topic attracts a lot of hand-waving, so it is worth laying out the honest, factual picture without promising anyone free money.

How grid-tied solar actually interacts with a rig

Most home solar is grid-tied: panels feed the house during daylight, and surplus flows back to the grid, often credited under a net-metering arrangement. A 5-8 kW rooftop array typically produces far more during the day than a 400-900W rig needs, so daytime mining can run effectively on solar output while the surplus still offsets the rest of the household. The catch is that mining benefits from running around the clock, and the sun does not.

The overnight problem

A rig wants to run at night too, and that is exactly when solar produces nothing. Three patterns address this:

  • Grid-tied, daytime mining: mine hardest during sunlight, lean on the grid at night. Simple and practical for most homes.
  • Battery-backed: store daytime surplus to run the rig overnight. Technically clean, but battery cost usually outweighs the modest MLRT a home rig earns.
  • Pure off-grid: feasible only with substantial battery capacity, and rarely justified by home-scale mining economics alone.

Net metering changes everything

Where you have favourable net metering, the calculation shifts: every kWh your rig consumes in daylight is a kWh you would otherwise have exported for credit, so the true "cost" of solar-powered mining is the value of that lost export credit, not zero. Where export credit is low, daytime mining is nearly free; where it is high, it is closer to ordinary grid cost. Read your specific arrangement before assuming sunshine is free fuel.

What this is not

None of this is a promise that solar makes mining profitable, or a prediction about returns. Panels are a capital cost, batteries more so, and MLRT earnings depend on factors entirely outside the energy question. Solar can lower the electricity component of mining and reduce its environmental footprint - that is the honest claim, and it is a worthwhile one.

A grounded recommendation

If you already have or are already installing solar for the house, pointing a modest home rig at the daytime surplus is a sensible, low-fuss way to mine cleaner. Buying panels specifically to mine is a much harder case to make and should be evaluated as the significant investment it is, with no assumption that mining will pay for the array. Clean daytime mining: yes. A money machine: no.