The Basics of Mining on Glow
Solar farms earn tokens on Glow by competing for mining rewards. To build a solar farm and put it on Glow, a miner faces two primary costs, and then receives three main revenue streams. The primary costs are the standard costs of materials and construction, as well as a protocol-enforced deposit that secures and incentivizes the solar farm's operational efficiency. The main revenue streams include the value collected from solar farm electricity, the GLW tokens earned by the solar farm, and the progressive recovery of the initial protocol deposit.
Glow Solar Farm Capital Flows
In practice, one entity rarely handles all of these requirements alone. Solar farms are complex pieces of capital-intensive infrastructure, and almost every solar farm comes together as a combination of coordinated efforts from specialized entities.
Glow v2 Introduces Specialized Mining Roles
While it's rare for one entity to cover all pieces of a solar farm's financing, installation costs, and operations, Glow v2 unbundles these requirements into three specialized mining roles:
Solar Farm Installers handle the physical construction and operation of solar farms. They finance the majority of construction costs and operational expenditures, earning revenue from electricity sales along with cash incentives from Glow Miners for bringing solar farms to Glow.
Glow Miners pay cash incentives to Solar Farm Installers to onboard high-impact solar farms. In exchange, they receive GLW tokens that the farm earns over its lifetime, and split these GLW token rewards with Glow Delegators.
Glow Delegators provide the protocol deposits required for farms to join Glow. They earn back their deposits plus any surplus based on the farm's competitive performance in Glow's revenue redistribution mechanism, as well as a share of GLW tokens allocated by Glow Miners.
Glow v2: Specialized Mining Operations
The Glow Miner operates at the center of the Glow mining ecosystem. They pay cash incentives to Solar Farm Installers for onboarding competitive solar farms and allocate GLW rewards to Glow Delegators who provide protocol deposits. Glow Miners keep the remaining GLW tokens as compensation. Since their realized profit equals retained GLW minus cash paid out, Glow Miners must understand the incentives driving both Solar Installers and Glow Delegators to identify the most valuable solar farms.
Solar Installers are responsible for bringing new solar farms to the Glow ecosystem and receive cash rewards from Glow Miners for onboarding competitive projects. Profitable solar farms require fewer cash incentives, but these farms are rarely competitive on Glow. Instead, Glow Miners typically offer cash incentives to installers for marginally viable solar farms that might otherwise remain unbuilt due to lower electricity revenues.
Glow Delegators provide the protocol deposits required for solar farms to join Glow. They prioritize delegating tokens to competitive solar farms that recover deposits faster and earn surplus rewards from less performant farms. These competitive dynamics are detailed in our Competitive Recursive Protocol (CRP) article.
This structure greatly simplifies the mining ecosystem, as each participant optimizes for one objective. Professional Solar Farm Installers optimize for securing the largest cash incentive for building new solar farms, GLW token holders optimize for efficiently earning GLW tokens from delegating to solar farms, and Glow Miners maximize the number of GLW tokens they receive per dollar they provide to Solar Farm Installers.
Solar Farm Installers
Solar Farm Installers focus on identifying and developing projects that maximize their cash rewards from Glow Miners. Glow Miners typically pay higher cash bounties for larger farms with lower electricity revenues and higher carbon displacement, as these farms are more competitive on Glow's protocol. Installers can use the Bounty Calculator at https://hub.glow.org/bounty to evaluate cash incentives for potential projects based on location, output, and projected electricity revenues. Most installers filter their entire dealflow through this tool, and build projects on Glow where bounties cover construction shortfalls plus desired profit margins.
Glow Delegation and The Launchpad
Glow Delegators are typically GLW token holders who allocate their tokens to solar farms joining Glow, providing the protocol deposits that farms need to compete. In return, Glow Delegators receive two reward streams: they recover their deposits based on farm performance in the protocol's competitive redistribution mechanism, and they earn a share of GLW inflation rewards allocated by Glow Miners. Competitive farms recover deposits quickly and capture surplus from weaker competitors, while underperforming farms forfeit some deposit value. Glow Delegators generally maximize their expected rewards by selecting farms with strong competitiveness metrics.
Glow Delegators use the Glow Launchpad platform to identify and evaluate solar farms for delegation. The platform displays farm competitiveness metrics and GLW reward splits, enabling Glow Delegators to select opportunities that align with their deployment preferences and reward expectations.
The Glow Miner and The Mining Center
Glow Miners pay cash to Solar Farm Installers, earn GLW tokens, and then split token rewards with Glow Delegators. Their mining profit equals their retained GLW minus cash paid out. Two factors determine rewards and costs: farm profitability determines cash incentive size (lower-profitability farms need larger cash incentives), and farm competitiveness determines the GLW split with Glow Delegators (lower-profitability farms are more competitive, requiring smaller GLW shares to Glow Delegators). Glow Miners seek the sweet spot where they pay minimal cash incentives while retaining maximum GLW rewards, which occurs with marginally viable farms that are highly competitive.
The Mining Center provides a simplified entry point for those who want exposure to Glow mining without the analytical complexity. This platform offers pre-balanced Glow Miner products with established cash incentives to solar installers and GLW reward splits to Glow Delegators, allowing potential Glow Miners to purchase a steady stream of GLW tokens for a defined cash amount.
The Benefits of Specialization
By segmenting Glow mining into specialized roles, v2 creates a more efficient ecosystem while preserving the incentive structures that drive carbon impact. Unbundling the capital stack dramatically expands the set of viable solar projects. Glow v1 tended to be most accessible to well-capitalized farms with sufficient resources to cover both construction costs and substantial protocol deposits, plus the sophistication to manage all aspects of mining and deposit recovery risk. Glow v2 opens participation to any farm that can demonstrate operational competence, as capital-constrained but high-quality operators can now access Glow's incentives by partnering with Glow Miners and Glow Delegators.
This labor specialization delivers multiple efficiency gains. Concentrated expertise leads to more accurate project evaluation and better capital allocation, while focused competition reduces the cost of each capital component. Faster iteration allows providers to evaluate and fund projects more quickly, as each specialist innovates within their domain, pushing other participants to continually improve their offerings. Ultimately, Glow v2 improves upon the powerful competitive framework introduced by Glow v1 by introducing dynamic markets that continuously optimize for higher impact per token emitted while dramatically expanding the pool of competitive participants.