Most homeowners think solar has one basic job: shrink the electric bill.

That used to be enough, because many utilities credited exported solar at (or close to) the retail rate through net metering. In simple terms, if you sent a kWh to the grid when the sun was strong, you could often pull a kWh back later at roughly the same value. NREL’s overview of net metering describes that basic retail credit structure, and also notes that unused credits can end up being settled at a wholesale rate at the end of a billing period. (NREL)

That world is changing.

A growing number of markets are moving away from full retail export credit and toward alternative structures that reduce the value of exports. NREL’s tracking of net metering revisions notes that multiple states have replaced traditional net metering with alternative rate structures that reduce savings for customer-sited solar. (NREL)

So homeowners are adjusting their behavior. Instead of “send it to the grid and get paid well later,” more households are designing systems around self-consumption.

Solar and storage made that shift possible.

The new homeowner logic: use your own energy first

When you add a battery, the goal changes. You are trying to keep more of your solar on-site.

A typical priority order looks like this:

1. Power the home in real time

2. Charge the battery (for night time)

3. Decide what to do with anything left over

That third step is where things get interesting, because export compensation is often lower than what the homeowner pays at retail. In many places, export value can resemble an avoided-cost or wholesale-style credit rather than a true 1:1 retail trade. (NREL)

If the grid is offering “pennies” for surplus at the same time retail prices feel painful, homeowners start asking a different question:

What else can I do with this extra power?

A new option: turn surplus kWh into Bitcoin

Bitcoin mining is, at its core, a way to convert electricity into a globally tradable digital asset. It is decentralized in a similar way to rooftop solar. No single company owns it. No utility controls it.

There is also a growing body of research and discussion around using excess renewable electricity to produce crypto assets, basically storing surplus energy as “crypto units,” especially in distributed systems and microgrids. (ScienceDirect)

That is the basic idea we are building toward on GigaWatt’s roadmap: an optional add-on that lets homeowners route surplus solar into an on-site Bitcoin miner, controlled through our proprietary software.

So the homeowner can choose:

• Export surplus to the grid (and take whatever export credit applies), or

• Send surplus to a miner once the home and battery needs are met

The product idea is simple: give the homeowner a dashboard that treats surplus energy like a decision and not a donation.

A quick credibility note, because this idea sits at the intersection of solar, software, and Bitcoin: Harold Tan, GigaWatt’s Director of IT and a board member since 2012, has been speaking publicly about Bitcoin and the evolution of money for years, including a TEDx talk on the topic. In 2014, he helped transact what was described at the time as the world’s first solar installation paid entirely in Bitcoin.

Two ways to mine: steady payouts or “lottery” mode

Mining comes in two basic flavors:

Pool mining (shared payouts): You join a pool, contribute hashrate, and get smaller, more consistent payouts based on your share.

Solo mining (lottery-style): You mine on your own. If you find a block, you keep the reward, but the odds are long. Braiins explains solo mining as a lottery dynamic, with extremely low probability for small miners. (Braiins)

A homeowner system would typically start with the pool approach, because it is the most predictable.

The money question: what is a kWh “worth” in Bitcoin mining?

Mining economics move around constantly. Bitcoin price changes. Network difficulty changes. Fees change. Hardware efficiency matters.

The clean way to talk about it is revenue per kWh, because that’s the number you’re comparing against whatever the utility pays you for exports.

Hashrate Index has shown how wide the spread can be based on hardware. In one example, they cite roughly $0.15 per kWh for a highly efficient S19 XP versus about $0.03 per kWh for an older, less efficient S9. (Hashrate Index)

They also track “energy-adjusted hashprice,” a way to think about mining revenue directly in $/kWh terms. In early 2025, they cited energy-adjusted hashprice for older-generation equipment in the neighborhood of about $0.061 to $0.08 per kWh. (Hashrate Index)

That range is the entire point.

Now contrast that with export compensation. NREL notes that unused net-metering credits can be settled at something closer to a wholesale rate, depending on the program. Net surplus compensation values can land in the low single-digit cents per kWh range in published utility NSC tables.

That spread is the whole story. When a surplus kWh is worth only a few cents exported, and something closer to ten cents or more when routed into a miner, the homeowner has a real choice. Keep the surplus onsite, and turn it into an asset instead of handing it back at a discount. (NREL)

Why investors should care (and how to underwrite it)

This is bigger than “mining at home.”

The investable idea is a new layer of monetization on top of distributed energy:

• Utilities are rewriting export economics in ways that push homeowners toward self-consumption. (NREL)

• Batteries make it possible to control when energy is used instead of dumping it onto the grid.

• Mining is a controllable, interruptible load that can soak up surplus and turn it into a liquid asset. (Hashrate Index)

If you are underwriting a solar company building a vertically integrated hardware and software stack, the question becomes:

Can the company give homeowners better choices, and make those choices simple to execute?

That is what we are aiming at with the Gigawatt software layer: homeowner control over surplus energy paths, including an optional mining add-on.

Why this fits GigaWatt’s mission

For nearly two decades, our brands have focused on helping homeowners build more independence through solar and storage. This is the same idea, applied to the surplus problem.

If a homeowner is overproducing, we want them to have choices inside the GigaWatt software layer: export to the grid and take the credit that exists, or route surplus to an onsite mining add-on during defined windows (for example, after the battery is full). The goal is not to promise returns. It’s to give the homeowner control over what happens to their extra production.

That control aligns with what we have always believed: energy independence should be practical, not theoretical. The Bitcoin piece is an extension of that mindset. It gives homeowners a way to turn surplus solar into an asset they can hold, sell, or keep, instead of handing value back to the utility at a discount.