How much power does a Bitcoin miner use, and what does it cost?

Far less than people imagine for a desk miner, far more for a farm machine. Among the machines reviewed on this site, the draw goes from under 10 W (NerdNOS, rated) to 165 W (NerdQX 8T, read in the interface). An Antminer S21, a machine built for mining farms, is rated by its maker at around 3,500 W, close to the limit of a French wall socket.

What changes everything is the running time: a miner runs 24 hours a day, all year, which is 8,760 hours. A 2,500 W oven used one hour a day draws about 900 kWh a year; a 500 W shelf that never stops draws nearly 4,400. That is why every watt counts with a miner.

Two numbers are enough: the machine’s power in watts (W) and the price of your kWh, printed on your bill. Watts say how fast the machine uses energy, kWh how much it has used: 1 kWh is 1,000 W for one hour, or 100 W for ten hours.

Example with the Thor P2, measured at 153 W at the wall: 153 × 8.76 = about 1,340 kWh a year. At €0.20 per kWh, that is about €268 a year, or about €22 a month.

The figure to remember: at €0.20 per kWh, every watt left running costs about €1.75 a year, and every 100 W about €175 a year, or €14.60 a month. This site always uses €0.20 per kWh: it is practically the Base price of EDF’s regulated Tarif Bleu in France as of 1 August 2026 (€0.2001 per kWh at 6 kVA). For your own case, use the price on your bill.

Here is every machine reviewed on this site, from the most frugal to the hungriest. The watts do not all come from the same place, and it matters: a figure measured at the wall is what you will pay for, a figure read in the interface leaves out power supply losses, and a rated figure comes from the maker or the sellers. Each machine’s name links to its review.

Power draw of the 9 machines reviewed on this site, running 24 hours a day, at €0.20 per kWh (worked out on 28 October 2026, average month of 30.4 days). Where the draw is a range, the math uses the value in brackets.

Machine	Power	Source	kWh a month	€ a month	€ a year
NerdNOS	under 10 W (math uses 10 W)	rated	7.3	€1.46	€18
Bitaxe Gamma	15 to 18 W (math uses 18 W)	rated	13	€2.63	€32
Thor X1	22 W, normal mode	measured at the wall	16	€3.21	€39
Bitaxe Gamma GT Turbo	about 50 W	read in the interface	37	€7.30	€88
NerdQAxe++ Hydro	about 70 W	rated	51	€10.22	€123
Avalon Nano 3S	140 W	rated	102	€20.44	€245
NerdOctaxe	144 to 146 W, stock settings (math uses 145 W)	measured at the wall	106	€21.17	€254
Thor P2	153 W, overclock Pushing the chip's frequency and voltage for more hashrate. It draws and heats noticeably more: on the Thor X1, +50% hashrate for 2.1 times the power. The review profile	measured at the wall	112	€22.34	€268
NerdQX 8T	165 W, stock settings	read in the interface	120	€24.09	€289

The machines from 140 to 165 W all cost between €20 and €25 a month: at that level, efficiency in J/TH The energy used for a trillion attempts: the lower, the more efficient the machine. A Bitaxe Gamma runs at about 15 J/TH. The comparison is what buys more or less hashrate Computing power: the number of attempts per second of a machine or of the whole network. The higher it is, the more tickets you play in each draw. for the same bill. And the lowest number is not always the best: the Thor X1 draws 22 W measured for 2.1 TH/s, while the Bitaxe Gamma is rated at 15 to 18 W for 1.2 TH/s.

The setting matters as much as the machine. On the Thor X1, overclocking adds about 50% more hashrate for more than twice the watts, 46 W measured instead of 22: about €42 more a year. On the Thor P2, by contrast, the overclock profile draws only 4 W more than the normal profile (153 W against 149). To choose with these numbers in mind: which miner for home mining.

EDF’s Tarif Bleu is France’s regulated electricity tariff: its prices are proposed by the energy regulator, the CRE (Commission de régulation de l’énergie), and set by government ministers. For 1 August 2026, the CRE proposed an average rise of 2.5% including taxes. These are the prices on EDF’s price sheet effective on that date, all taxes included:

These prices include the electricity excise duty (3.062 euro cents per kWh before VAT) and 20% VAT. On the Base option, 9 to 36 kVA are no longer offered to new contracts. The next regulated price change is planned for 1 February 2027: check the date of the price sheet before redoing your math.

Off-peak hours barely help a miner. A machine running non-stop always spends 8 hours out of 24 in off-peak time, wherever those hours fall. On the off-peak option its average price is therefore about €0.1958 per kWh, barely 2% less than Base. The new off-peak windows that Enedis, the French distribution grid operator, is rolling out until the end of 2027, with afternoon off-peak hours in summer, change nothing here: there are still 8 a day. And mining only at night lowers the price of each kWh but also cuts your hashing time to a third, and your solo odds with it.

Tempo is a Tarif Bleu option where the price per kWh changes every day according to a colour. A year has 300 or 301 blue days, every Sunday included, 43 white days, possible all year except on Sundays, and 22 red days, placed during winter demand peaks: between 1 November and 31 March, never at weekends or on national public holidays, and at most 5 in a row. From 1 November 2026, 24 and 31 December can no longer be red days (CRE decision of 21 October 2026, in French). Off-peak runs from 10 pm to 6 am, and a Tempo day runs from 6 am to 6 am the next morning. EDF announces the next day’s colour from 11 am (text message, email or app), and the Linky smart meter shows it at 8 pm. The option requires at least 6 kVA.

EDF Tarif Bleu, Tempo option: price per kWh including taxes as of 1 August 2026 (the same from 6 to 36 kVA), and the cost of a full day for a 100 W machine and a 550 W shelf running non-stop. Source: EDF price sheet.

Day	Days a year	Off-peak (10 pm to 6 am)	Peak (6 am to 10 pm)	Day at 100 W	Day at 550 W
Blue	300 or 301	€0.1356	€0.1654	€0.37	€2.05
White	43	€0.1536	€0.1921	€0.43	€2.37
Red	22	€0.1615	€0.7295	€1.30	€7.13

For a machine running non-stop with no change in habits, the average price over the year drops to about €0.1815 per kWh, 9% less than Base. But the 22 red days, 6% of the year, account for about 18% of the bill on their own: at peak hours, a red-day kWh costs €0.7295, 3.6 times the Base price.

The fix, if you are on Tempo: switch the miners off from 6 am to 10 pm on red days, and let them run at night. For 550 W, a red day then drops from €7.13 to €0.71, saving about €141 a year for 4% fewer hashing hours. A smart plug set the day before is enough, since the colour is known in advance. One exception: if the room is heated by electric radiators with a thermostat, switching the miner off just makes the radiator work in its place, at the same price per kWh.

Tempo applies to the whole home, not just the miner: electric heating, oven and water heater also pay €0.7295 per kWh at peak hours on red days. It is a household decision, worth it if you can shift your usage on those days. The table below sums up each option for a load that never stops.

Average price per kWh and a year of electricity for a load that never stops, by Tarif Bleu option (prices including taxes as of 1 August 2026, 6 kVA, standing charge excluded).

Option	Average price per kWh	100 W a year	550 W a year
Base	€0.2001	€175	€964
Off-peak (Heures creuses)	€0.1958	€171	€943
Tempo, changing nothing	€0.1815	€159	€874
Tempo, miners off from 6 am to 10 pm on red days	€0.1585	€133	€733

My shelf holds 13 machines, about 50 TH/s, and draws 500 to 600 W day and night. I am on EDF’s Tempo plan, and mining costs me about €70 of electricity a month. At the 1 August 2026 prices, a day at 550 W costs me about €2.05 on a blue day, €2.37 on a white day and €7.13 on a red day. The home page of this site shows the Tempo colour of the day and what my day of mining costs.

The math confirms the order of magnitude: over a Tempo year, 500 to 600 W running non-stop come to €66 to €79 a month, standing charge excluded (the household pays it anyway). In winter this electricity is not wasted: the machines’ heat warms the room. The block, though, has still not come.

In France, your contract sets a subscribed power in kVA: the most your home can draw at once. If the total goes over, the Linky meter cuts the power and shows “PUISS DEPASSEE”: unplug one or more appliances, then press the meter’s + button for 5 seconds to reset it.

Desk miners rarely change the picture: 550 W is about a tenth of a 6 kVA subscription. They only shrink your margin when the oven, hob and water heater run at the same time. If the meter keeps cutting out, going from 6 to 9 kVA on Tempo costs €3.90 more a month (€15.80 against €19.70 including taxes). A farm machine is another story: rated at 3,500 W, an Antminer S21 takes more than half of a 6 kVA subscription on its own.

On safety, the danger with a shelf of miners lies less in the total power than in the connections. A power strip does not add power, it only shares An attempt good enough to be counted by the pool. It proves your machine is working, even if it is not enough to find a block. it, and a French wall socket stays limited to about 3,600 W:

• Never chain power strips, one plugged into another.
• Check the maximum power marked on the strip, and add up your machines.
• Let power supplies breathe: not under a cushion, not behind a curtain, not in a closed cabinet, and dust them along with the machines (the guide to a miner running hot).
• A farm machine like the S21, close to the limit of a socket and running around the clock, needs a dedicated circuit, installed or checked by an electrician.
• A smoke detector is compulsory in every home in France: with machines running day and night, make sure it works.

Because a miner’s interface does not count power supply losses, while you pay for everything that goes into the socket. My Thor X1 review shows it well: in overclock, its interface, which only measures the chip, reports around 10 J/TH, which would mean about 32 W for 3.22 TH/s; at the wall I measured 46 W, or 14.2 J/TH. About 14 W escape the interface, power supply losses first among them: about €24 a year at €0.20 per kWh. Same story with the Thor P2: the efficiency the machine displays is more flattering than the measurement.

A rated figure can also be wrong the other way: sellers rate the Thor P2 at 155 to 166 W, and I measured 153 W at 10 TH/s. Only a measurement settles it. The method, with a plug-in power meter between the wall and the power supply:

1. Let the machine warm up for a good half hour, in the setting you will actually use (normal or overclock).
2. Read the watts shown at the wall.
3. Leave it running for 24 hours and read the kWh counter: kWh × 1,000 ÷ 24 gives the real average power.
4. For a whole shelf, plug the power strip into the meter, after checking that the meter’s maximum rating is enough.
5. Multiply by 8.76, then by your price per kWh: that is your real yearly cost.

Almost all of a miner’s electricity ends up as heat: a 550 W shelf heats like a 550 W heater. In winter, at my place, it warms the room; in summer it is unwanted heat. If you heat with electric radiators, each kWh from the miner replaces roughly one; with a heat pump, which delivers more heat than the electricity it uses, the advantage shrinks. The full math: heating your home by mining Bitcoin.

On the other side, what that electricity earns (network as of 17 October 2026). For a machine to cover its electricity on average, meaning with what a regular pool A server that machines connect to. A regular pool shares the earnings, a solo pool does not. Solo or pool? would pay it before fees, a kWh would have to cost less than €0.129 for the Thor X1, €0.090 for the NerdOctaxe and €0.089 for the Thor P2, the three machines measured at the wall. None of them covers its electricity on the Tarif Bleu, then, not even at the cheapest price on the sheet, off-peak on a Tempo blue day (€0.1356). These thresholds move with network difficulty How many attempts it takes on average to find a block. It adjusts itself about every two weeks. Difficulty explained and the bitcoin price. And solo, it is not a wage but a ticket anyway: the average never lands, you get the whole block or nothing.

To go further: the solo mining calculator redoes this math with your machine and your price per kWh, is Bitcoin mining profitable? gives the full picture, how long to mine one bitcoin gives the electricity cost of a whole bitcoin, how much a Bitaxe earns walks through the math step by step, and if a block ever lands, Bitcoin mining and taxes in France covers the tax side.