The" Dream Mining Power Infrastructure" for Crypto Miners?  Reliable Super Cheap Power, Security and always connected, located where you want it to be.

I have been working on this Crypto Mining Power challenge for the last few years as my main focus in life, and as a result have come up with a  low cost, highly efficient power system retrofit of existing Wind Turbines adding in containerized DCs and container sized batteries. Think GIANT Lego. :)

The "Wind Rotor Replacement" company I have created is called WRR Systems (Pronounced "Whirr Systems", as in Whirrly-Gig ;) ) you can find it here

At WRR we are focused on a few items to make the Crypto Mining Power Scene a more profitable place:

• Extract  1.8X more energy from the wind using Bernoulli (2nd law of physics stuff) acceleration of low pressure to drive modified Wind Rotors
• Double  "capacity factor" so we can Double the "AEP" Annual Energy Production from the same wind tower site
• Build a Wind Powered Electricity Generation & Storage System that does not require a tax payer or rate payer subsidy

It's a "three legged stool" design challenge trying to balance each goal to produce a break-thru  in non-subsidized utility class wind powered generation.

Now here is the twist of fate. Wind sucks as a "prime mover". It's un-reliable as hell, often the power gets sold at the wrong time of day (night) when payouts are low (in  free markets, if its communist FIT "Feed in Tarriff" style payout, then no worries).

The Big  Cloud Applications are of course,  creating "Power sucking Aliens" where they compete with the power draw of massive cities such as NYC and similar.

Say What? Yup Big Data Centers are eating the world's electricity supply. (Where there are 50% losses before those DCs even see the power.)

Base pic source: https://cthulhufiles.wordpress.com/2015/11/26/e7s2-elena-alcatruz-yucatan/

For us in the crypto crowd, it's Blockchain Proof of Work Mining, Especially Bitcoin, perhaps the  biggest "Power Sucking Alien" software ever created.

Now here is the  CRYPTO Conundrum of blockchain.

The world of Crypto as envisioned by that Bitcoin inventor is supposed to be a distributed unassailable system of nodes handling mining and transactions and smart contracts, and distributed computing, accessible and used by all, changing the world of money to digital cash controlled by no Central bank. 

Instead we have centralized mining pools, MASTER Nodes, Centralized exchanges, centralized committee management of development., and the dreaded Proof of Stake (only the big boys with cash can play..), controlled by the money people of NYC and London, and Hong Kong, etc.

Go Figure. (or WTF for some of us ;) )

What if, we could, with a modest budget, run our own micro-node center, in a windy field somewhere nearby, possibly on a Wind Farm,  as they are sprouting up all over the place, in hard to get at locations that are typically secure in some way.

(Ever tried to climb a wind farm tower, or throw something at the blades, just for fun? It's likely not going to work well for you. :) )

So that's what we have designed. (Build one, and they will want more, or so the theory goes... :) )

Crypto Power Tower:  Battery Powered Distributed Crypto Mining with a Wind Powered Charging Array.

The WRR Systems Crypto Power Tower "CPT" is 60 meters tall . (or 55m or 65m or 70m, or 75m, or 80m, you get the picture we use the old tower)

The CPT makes use of the existing tower of any Utility Wind Turbine of the same height, 

The key decision point is when the wind farm operator/owner is about to upgrade an old, worn out Wind Turbine with new rotor blades (don't do it, it will never pay for itself) or,  have the Wind Turbine's "screwed up" transmission replaced (don't do that either, very expensive) or,  it's just an old wind turbine (say a Mitsubishi 1MW) that is done and needs to come down (retirement, its too expensive to keep maintaining it, etc..).

Oh yeah, keep in mind the capacity factor sucks FOR ALL WIND TURBINES,  which might be 24% to 28% of NP 'Nameplate" in a good year, ( when the vendor told the owner/operator of the Wind turbine purchased the capacity factor annually would be 33% (well that didn't happen, ouch, bye-bye ROI).

TK note- Capacity factor is a simple measurement of the annual hourly average power output for the Wind Farm or single Wind Turbine  where actual capacity factor is measured as Annual energy Production in Megawatt hours, divided by the number of hours in the year.

Jumbo Lego Build of Crypto Mining Power Towers: Keep it Simple, easy to install, modular, etc...

 The key to building a Crypto Power Tower is modularity on a VERY LARGE , Lego-like Scale.

Containers, 40 ft containers, are the packaging mechanism both for delivery and on-site use. Planes, trains, trucks and ships all use them, they are the standard by which we get stuff sent from A to E.

Of course none of that is true when you build a Wind Turbine in the megawatt class. All transport is custom, CRANES are custom ( on a 3 month waiting list, these big two stage lift German cranes they are..) All of which adds to the cost, and one of several reasons Big Wind ALWAYS needs a tax payer (FIT) subsidy (higher taxes, more handouts to corporations)  or rate payer (Private Power Network operator) subsidy (higher bill). Nice? not. |:/

Never mind the disposal costs are never factored in. (If they were there would be more subsidies required)

DC Container Building blocks for the Power Tower

The Data Center for crypto mining is a ring of smaller containers ( of any small standard size 8/9/10/20 ft) which can be added incrementally, with their own secure access, HVAC systems, under one circular roof. The Batteries are the same size and interspersed in between the ring of DC containers.

https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/edge-computing/edgemicro-plots-disrupt-edge-colocation-48kw-time

OK What fits in the DC Container? Essentially two 42U height racks, full of mining rigs, network switches and security firewalls, with a wireless and fibre landline pair of hi speed links to the Internet. Geo-sync low orbit Satellite link services can also be added if deemed necessary. These Micro Mining DCs can be configured the way you like, you can own or rent the Micro DC, or rent  a DC set of  rack slots  from some one owning or leasing them. 

OK, we are in the design stages for sure for the Crypto Power Tower and, the reason I publish this on Publish0X to get your feed back in the comments section

Do we care what type of crypto mining runs in the Crypto Power Tower?

Nope, as an operating IPP Independent Power Producer,  the plan is to offer really cheap power purchase agreements, both short and long term,  for a small cut of rewards as you earn them from mining, paid in your favourite crypto. We take care of the rest. Any open racks or slots get rented out to any one looking for secure off grid hosting with fast SSD storage and/or slower "spinning rust" hard disk storage.

Crypto Mining Power Tower Batteries in Containers: ZincAir is incoming, Lithium Ion Battery Suppliers should be worried..

ZincAir is THE game changer in Container Sized Batteries at US $ 100/kWhr versus Lithium at a subsidized US $200/kWhr (Tesla, SAFT, etc..,). VIZN Energy , in Columbia Falls, Montana have an early lead in the market with Zinc8 (Canada) right behind them. Smaller format battery provider Nant Energy (USA) is also a player  for off-grid only and remote micro grid configurations. If you are in a warm, really warm all the time climate then Redflow (Australia) ZincBromine is a great solution. Check my earlier post here for more information.

https://www.viznenergy.com/products-z20/

Funding? What Funding? 

How will we pay for the development and deployment and certification of the first WRR Systems Crypto Mining Powee Tower?

You guessed it> Crowdfunding in crypto. (More on this later)

Now let me tell you a little bit about how the WRR Crypto Power Tower works.  The key element is the WRR Head (pronounced Whirr head)

Modular WRR Head Design 

I have extended the "WRR Head" design to have a  "base of tower" circular Data Centre to support any type of IT operation including crypto Mining, which houses containerized DC Racks, and their supporting "primer mover" Energy Storage systems, with a backup connection to the power grid and both 5G (Antennae and Base Station is Roof mounted) and fiber optic connectivity 

The Crypto Power Tower version of the design, I am currently working on, fundamentally and importantly adds Energy Storage at the base of the Tower, in the form of 40ft container batteries. (Per my earlier post, I like the emerging, 50% cheaper, large forma ZincAir Battery offers over the more expensive and flammable Lithium ones).

Now for the Name? Hmm  (I am open to suggestions in the comments section below) 

For now we will use Crypto Power Tower"CPT" or just PowerTower,

The CPT is designed to address the 'want' list of of pretty well any Crypto Miner gig, big or small, any type. 

The CPT is in essence, a "colo" for co-locating your own equipment at very low cost or even zero cost if the deal is right, in return for a slice of the mining "rewards" action in the latter case, and simply a straight forward low cost, monthly rack, power and bandwidth rental. 

PT Retrofit: Any Tubular Wind Tower with a power connection to the public grid

Any Wind Turbine of 55m nacelle height  or higher  (aka Hub height, up to 80m supported) with a three for four section tube tower (typically 20m a section, tapered) can be fitted out as a WRR Head equipped CPT, which is sized relative to the available wind resource.

For example, an existing 1MW Wind Turbine (Mitsubishi for example, a lot of them are ripe for replacement) on a 55m tower will typically on average generate 30% of  NP "Nameplate" as it's hourly annual average "capacity factor", which is pretty lousy.  Especially when compared to Natural Gas fired electricity generation Gas Turbine which routinely is 55% efficient (fuel burn efficiency) versus Wind (which is typically about 45% efficient versus the wind flow kinetic energy available, running at its rated wind speed of 11 m/s).

NG "Natural Gas" fired generation can run all day long at its rated NP, emitting both ground level ozone pollution (NG fired generation kills anything in sight within 100m over time if running 24*7*365)  and also produces triple chain Sulfur and Nitrogen pollutants responsible for the smell, headaches and your nice Red sunsets. :/ . That stuff is expensive to scrub, and is a direct result of impurities found in NG, solution gas is the worst, "Market NG" is reformed removing most of the sulfur and Nitrogen which is sold as by products, also expensive to remove, driving the price of market gas upward. Its dirty stuff despite what the industry promotes as the "cleanest non-renewable". It's really cheap too, because the regulators don't make the producers and generators bear the full environmental costs. Slap up a tall enough dispersion stack and you are in business, that is if you hit the PPM Parts Per Million 'regulated' target measured at ground level, within a certain distance of the stack. (Every county and state jurisdiction has their own formula as local Bylaws can over-ride state/province and federal laws)

Ok enough of the power rant, now the fun part.

Build your own CPT - Crypto Mining Sovereignty (from Power Providers)

Off with their head! Rotor blades and Nacelle Sub System be gone.

http://www.felmersham.net/journal/petsoe-windturbine.htm

The WRR Systems difference?

If it's a "new" Tower build, No Nacelle and rotors are installed , instead the WRR Head stack gets installed and the DC is added around the Tower Base.

WRR Systems Power Tower How to? for those interested.

For old or retired Wind Turbines, we decapitate the Wind Turbine of 1 MW (we do it for a fee, or optionally you do it yourself via sub-contractor), leaving only the tower, power cabling, and of course the foundation (with an existing  connection and preferably an existing FIT or ISO contract to sell power to the public grid which can be later, reconnected, tested and re-activated later). All that stands in this case, to the visible eye, is the 60m tubular tower.

Our first step in upgrading an old build,  after rotor blades and nacelle are removed,  is to equip the tower outer walls with mount hardware on which we stack the WRR Heads, 320 kW to 400 kW in NP each with 4 rotors, 2 on the left spinning clockwise and two on the right spinning counter clockwise. For more information on the WRR Head, go here.

Once the adaptor systems is installed, the service elevator is upgraded to have service walk ways installed at each level. at the end of the walk way, a doorway is installed to allow service technicians easy "ground-like" access to the WRR Head Rotors, which themselves are accessed through sliding 1/2 doors embedded into the walls of the WRR head , North, South, East and West, equally spaced. The existing service elevator is then re-purposed at WRR Head install time to carry personnel, tools and run power cables to the newly installed Head which has its own top and bottom builtin 360 degree carousel and integrated dual bus set of power bars (running on the bottom steel ring of each WRR Head. 

Once the WRR Head is "drop" installed by a crane on to the tower mounts and secured, the same crane is used to drop its hook through the WRR Head 1/8th section passage way to lift all four rotors into place, one at a time, for deployment into the carousel slot by the field personnel performing the installation. No special skills required here other than decent fitness and safety training, including fall training, as each technician, as normal wears a hard hat and trapeze harness which is secured to the interior ceiling and interior side wall of the WRR Head for 100% safety. The WRR Rotors are not light (about 1 ton is the design goal), and require at least two people to push the roller equipped rotors into the carousel slots. A Manual or electric winch can also be used to both pull the WRR rotor into the Carousel ( install pulleys involved as an option) or pulled out of the carousel and back thru the WRR Head  sliding 1/2 doors and onto the interior floor of the WRR Head, for interior servicing as required, or for safety (remove the rotors from the path of an oncoming tornado or hurricane for instance)

Electrical wiring is built into the WRR head, so only the "down " distribution cables need to be pulled up to each head and connected. These cables are first tied into a WRR Systems provided AC/AC Switch combiner. Each WRR Head has two WRR rotors sharing a single power bus, and each power bus has its own "down" cable to the switch assembly located in the DC Ring. The Switch is WRR Systems installed to connect to the existing 1 MW power distribution cable, and configured to match the same previous voltage characteristics (ie 680 V AC three phase, as produced by many induction generator equipped turbines.) 

There are several test and activation processes we will skip before your "eyes glaze over", suffice it to say WRR systems and our build/activate/operate/maintain  "baom" ("bay ohm") partners take care of that for you.

Next step energy Storage and DC container installation!

Enter WRR Systems and the Crypto Power Tower - Clean Charging Power of off Grid  Batteries "Feed "the Crypto Mining "Colo" Data Center Ring

The CPT, equipped with multiple WRR Heads to match the power cable capacity in the ground running to the grid's nearest substation, that same power can be re-directed most of the time when needed as intermittent charging power to the Energy Storage ring found in the base of the CPT, acting as redundant "prime mover" power. Based on the WRR Head 'Stack' Total Name Plate and the projected capacity factor hourly average calculated for the course of a year, its a safe bet to install four to five times more storage measured in MegaWatt "MW" hours, (typically priced in kilowatt hours of storage depth for smaller systems such as Tesla's PowerWall) .

Power Grid Use?- Last Resort Charging and Revenue Conduit for Excess Power Sales

The Utility Public Power Grid is relegated to a "last resort" backup power source, should there be no or little wind and the DC Center crypto mining rig activity has been operating at a sustained maximum hash solving rate. When the mining rig requirements are low power is sold by the CPT operator back to the gird in a timely fashion to help keep the regular monthly mining rates really low. 

For a really robust communications infrastructure one or more Satellite  Network connections can be added on top of the CPT, sharing the "dunnage" or mount structure of the 5G and or WIFI 7 Antennae.

WRR Systems Power Tower: "Lord of the Ring", DC Ring that is...: A Power Self-Sufficient Crypto Mining Capable DC Colo, Shipped by Container

We can scale the Data Center to suit: Big or Small

Containerized  "Crypto Power Tower", Delivered to Wind Tower Site near you..,

WRR Systems is focused on simple fast Truck Delivery of the DC and Energy Storage Containers to get the Power Tower to site at really low cost.

The CPT Base DC 'Ring' is designed to roll the Truck bearing the DC 20 ft. container backup to the ring wall, Freight Delivery doors and  then slide the DC Container or Energy Storage container inside the ring where it is shuttled to the right spot via the overhead ring gantry, then shoved into a slot around the outer part of the wall.  Technicians Plug in the Batteries to the WRR Head down cables, then plug the batteries into the Data Center containers. DC to Battery rations can be set up as the Miner likes, adding more Battery depth, in say 1:2 or even 1:3 ratios DC vs. Battery. WRR Systems helps the miner figure out the best power layout for Micro Mining DC. 

On a real green note, The CPT design calls for greenery to be planted around the outside base of the ring wall, which acts as first stage filter for dust, dirt and debris. Inlets travel under ground below frost level to 55 F or 15 degree temperature earth which acts as a large "multi-intake"  two way passive thermal exchange to regulate the temperature entering the interior of the DC ring regardless the weather outside. So whether it is hot, or cold outside, the insulated DC Ring gets a steady temperature feed of between 15 to 20 degrees Celsius from outside to inside of filtered air. Looking to own/operate a WRR Head Powered  CPT? No problem, pick your favourite DC Container vendor and Energy Storage vendor and away you go. All good.

So there you have it, the "cat" is out of TK's bag "whirring". ;)

TK over and out.

*****