Off-Grid & Solar-Direct Bitcoin Mining Calculator
How many solar panels does it take to mine Bitcoin, and can you really run an ASIC off-grid on the sun? This calculator sizes a photovoltaic array for a specific miner and Canadian city, then shows the honest trade-off between running solar-direct (mining only while the sun is up) and the far more expensive battery-backed 24/7 approach. Pick your miner and location below — the wall watts, hashrate, peak-sun-hours and live network reward are all pulled from D-Central’s datasets.
Quick answer
To mine with an Antminer S19j Pro (3,050 W, 100 TH/s) off-grid in Calgary, size about 3.91 kW of solar (roughly 10 × 400 W panels) and run it solar-direct — only when the sun is up. That is about 1.9 h/day of full-power mining in mid-winter, 6 h/day in summer and 4 h/day on the annual average (capacity factor about 0.17), producing about 0.00000866 BTC/day (~866 sats, $0.79 CAD/day) at today’s live hashprice. Battery-backed 24/7 solar mining would need roughly 61 kWh of storage plus 23.5 kW of PV — about $92,154 CAD — to earn about $4.75 CAD/day, which never pays back. Every figure is an estimate; size a real system with a solar installer.
Method: PV kW = miner kW ÷ system derate; solar-direct mining hours ≈ the site’s seasonal peak-sun-hours; BTC/day = (hashrate ÷ live network hashrate) × 144 × block reward × capacity factor. Solar data is NRCan (Canadian Solar Resource dataset), miner watts/hashrate from D-Central’s per-miner power dataset, and block reward/BTC price from the live hashprice snapshot. Battery-backed 24/7 solar mining is generally uneconomic for an interruptible ~3 kW load — the honest off-grid play is solar-direct daytime running. Estimates only; not financial advice.
Cost & panel assumptions (edit)
Cost and panel figures are editable planning assumptions, not quotes. Peak-sun-hours (NRCan), miner watts/hashrate (D-Central power dataset) and the block reward / BTC price (live hashprice snapshot) are single-sourced and not editable here.
Solar-direct is the honest off-grid play. To keep Antminer S19j Pro running on sunlight in Calgary, size about 3.91 kW of PV (~10 × 400 W panels) and run it only while the sun is up — about 1.9 h/day in mid-winter, 6 h/day in summer, and 4 h/day on the annual average (capacity factor ≈ 0.17).
Battery-backed 24/7 solar mining is generally uneconomic. Running this miner around the clock off-grid would need roughly 61 kWh of battery plus 23.5 kW of PV — about $92,154 CAD of hardware to earn about $4.75 CAD/day at today’s hashprice (revenue-only payback ≈ 53.1 yr). For an interruptible ~3.1 kW load, spend that capital on panels, not batteries, and mine the sun.
| Season | Peak sun (h/day) | Mining h/day | Capacity factor | BTC/day | Sats/day | Revenue/day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter | 1.9 | 1.9 | 0.079 | 0.00000411 | 411 | $0.38 CAD |
| Summer | 6 | 6 | 0.25 | 0.00001299 | 1,299 | $1.19 CAD |
| Annual average | 4 | 4 | 0.167 | 0.00000866 | 866 | $0.79 CAD |
| Metric | Strategy A — solar-direct | Strategy B — battery 24/7 |
|---|---|---|
| PV array | 3.91 kW (~10 panels) | 23.5 kW (~59 panels) |
| Battery | none / minimal | 61 kWh (16 h autonomy) |
| Est. hardware capex | $12,776 CAD | $92,154 CAD |
| Uptime | solar-direct (~0.17 annual) | 24/7 |
| Revenue/day (annual avg) | $0.79 CAD | $4.75 CAD |
| Effective $/TH (capex ÷ TH/s) | $127.76 CAD | — |
| First-year capex per BTC | $4,042,078 CAD | $4,859,417 CAD |
| Revenue-only payback | 44.2 yr | 53.1 yr |
At today’s network difficulty a single home ASIC mines a very small amount of BTC, so the first-year capex-per-BTC figures are enormous — solar-direct home mining is about stacking sats, reusing the heat and energy sovereignty, not buying BTC cheaply. Every number here is an estimate; real yield swings with weather, tilt, shading, snow and temperature. Size a real system with a solar installer.
Method & caveats. Strategy A (solar-direct): the PV array is sized so that after losses it delivers the miner’s full wall power at peak sun — PV kW = miner kW ÷ system derate. Solar-direct mining hours per day are approximated by the site’s mean daily peak-sun-hours for each season (NRCan), and the capacity factor is those hours ÷ 24. BTC/day = your hashrate ÷ the live network hashrate (~871 EH/s) × 144 blocks × the fee-inclusive daily block reward × the capacity factor, valued at the BTC price from D-Central’s live hashprice feed (snapshot 2026-07-27, gross of pool fees). Strategy B (battery-backed 24/7): battery kWh = miner kW × target autonomy hours ÷ depth of discharge, and the PV needed to sustain a full day’s load off the annual sun = miner kW × 24 ÷ (annual peak-sun-hours × derate) — both grow steeply, which is why battery-backed 24/7 solar mining is generally uneconomic for an interruptible load. Miner watts and hashrate come from D-Central’s per-miner power dataset; solar figures from the NRCan-based Canadian Solar Resource dataset; cost and panel figures are editable planning assumptions, not quotes. Everything here is an estimate — real yield varies with weather, tilt, shading, snow and panel temperature, so size a real system with a solar installer. See the energy-independence hub, the off-grid solar node planner and the full ASIC ROI & payback calculator. Not financial advice.
Frequently asked questions
How many solar panels does it take to mine Bitcoin?
Enough to cover your miner's wall power at peak sun, plus a derate for real-world losses. As a rule of thumb the array in kilowatts equals the miner's kilowatts divided by about 0.78, so a ~3 kW ASIC needs roughly 3.9 kW of panels, or about ten 400 W modules, to run solar-direct in daylight. Running it 24/7 off batteries needs several times that. This calculator sizes it from your exact miner and city.
Can you mine Bitcoin off-grid with solar?
Yes, but the honest way is solar-direct: run the miner only while the sun is producing enough power, treating it as an interruptible load. That mines for roughly the number of peak-sun-hours your site gets each day, which swings from a couple of hours in mid-winter to five or six in summer. Trying to run around the clock means adding a large, expensive battery bank that rarely pays back at mining margins.
Why is battery-backed 24/7 solar mining usually uneconomic?
Batteries are the expensive part. Storing a full night of a 3 kW miner's energy takes tens of kilowatt-hours of battery, and sustaining 24/7 operation off the annual sun needs an array several times larger than the daytime-only case. The combined capex often runs into the tens of thousands to earn a few dollars a day at current hashprice. A miner is an ideal interruptible load, so it is far cheaper to size panels for daytime running and simply shut down at night.
How much Bitcoin would a solar miner actually produce?
At today's network difficulty a single home ASIC earns only a small fraction of a bitcoin per year even running full-time, and solar-direct running cuts that to the capacity factor (peak-sun-hours divided by 24, often around 0.15 in Canada). The calculator shows the BTC per day, sats per day and revenue per day for winter, summer and the annual average from the live hashprice, so you can see the real, modest numbers rather than a marketing estimate.
What is a capacity factor for solar mining?
It is the share of a full 24-hour day that a solar-direct miner can actually run. If your site averages four peak-sun-hours, the miner runs about four hours a day, for a capacity factor near 0.17. Winter capacity factors in Canada can fall below 0.10, while summer can exceed 0.25. It directly scales your Bitcoin output, which is why a sunny Prairie site produces far more than a cloudy coastal one on the same hardware.
Are these solar mining numbers exact?
No. They are planning estimates. Peak-sun-hours are NRCan geographic averages and real generation varies with tilt, azimuth, shading, snow cover, panel temperature and inverter losses; the derate captures only a typical slice of that. Miner watts and hashrate are dataset nameplates, and revenue is a live but volatile hashprice snapshot. Use the output to understand the shape of the problem, then size an actual system with a solar installer and a site survey. Not financial advice.
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Last reviewed July 26, 2026.