Just going to throw in my 2 cents about Germany from a nerdy/SNO point of view:
- electricity is extremely expensive (30ct/kWh - keep in mind those are euro cents)
- internet speed are generally on the slower end
If you know German and English, then Dutch shouldn’t be too difficult as it sounds like a mixture of both 
Wait till you hear how we pronounce the G though!
3 Likes
i also have high electricity costs… i’m strongly considering getting some solar… seems like a pretty sensible combo…
1 Like
The price of solar panels dropped so much in the last years that it’s pretty much always a good investment. Especially small installations that cover your consumption. The problem is that the resale price of solar electricity is very low (depends greatly on incentives) or at least lower that the price at which you buy electricity so you are better off designing your system according to your needs.
The best would be to have a battery to store some of the excess but they get quite pricey…
We even have an article for using an alternative power supply:
2 Likes
yeah well battery prices are also dropping fast… and really the battery side isn’t that important… more about just having enough panels / good enough setup that it will recharge enough most days to manage through the night… and with an inverter that can switch from mains supply to battery depending on battery level, would make it a net positive gain almost no matter how i set it up…
but yeah a fairly big solar system can be quite the cost… but with the right inverter i can skimp on the batteries at first… use some old junk or something, and just get a few panels so i can atleast offset the server power when there is good sun… so really a few panels and a nice good sized inverter maybe some combination UPS thing…
Having just installed a decent sized solar array (9.76kWp) and two Powerwalls, I can safely say that my Storj nodes are currently running on sun.
However, this being the UK and with the absolutely disgusting weather we’ve been having this week I’ve not really generated more than about 16kWh per day this whole week so I’m just barely making it. And this is the middle of “summer”.
I suspect my solar production will be effectively zero in the middle of winter.
if your setup is done correctly even highly cloudy weather should give you charge… it comes down to running on over voltage and having a inverter that supports down scaling the voltage…
basically it goes something like this… if you got a 12 volt battery bank… and a 24 volt outputting solar array then you can charge even at 50% sun… have a solar array output of 48volt and you can charge at 25% … thus to reliable be able to charge every day… one needs to run over voltage and have a inverter that can scale it down… its why many of the more advanced or mature solar cell setups run on increasingly higher voltages…
ofc smaller wires also help make it cheaper…, if we imagine the other way… then a 12 volt battery on a 12 volt solar array… then if the battery is 75% charged and sun light is at 80% of max… (which would be max most of the day unless if you have an active solar tracking setup)
thus you with a equal voltage solar setup end up with very low voltage differential between solar array output and the battery which means low yield…
anyways worth checking up on, if you wasn’t aware of it… 9.8kw is a pretty good size … atleast it sounds like its easy to expand upon your setup… after all the panels aren’t that bad these days…
16kwh on a 9.8kw system sounds pathetic tho… thats like not even 2 hours of daylight
i think we can all agree that no matter how bad your weather have been then you have had more than 20% of full daylight 
so i suspect there is something not optimally configured in your setup… ofc non tracking setup… i actually don’t remember what the potential daily power ingress would be in summer here…
most often the voltage thing gets overlooked, but it’s been a couple of years since i last was full on solar… markets change all the time
Well, I’ve managed to produce 45kWh on a sunny (ish) day. I’m thinking a completely clear day will get me to 50kWh
Don’t underestimate the British cloud cover 
3 Likes
I know, you are writer, not the reader, but I would like to suggest you to take a look on this article to have an clear understanding, what you really need to have to run solar, water, wind and thermoelectric generators:
i saw it the first time and also did skim through it… it’s called lithium iron phosphate not lithium phosphor
i’ve done my fair share of work and research in power / energy systems, it’s very detailed and very well made, i like it… but it’s just doesn’t deal with the kind of details of such systems which i try to take into account…
but very nice work… and i would highly recommend anyone wanting to get into renewable’s should read it…
might be one of the easiest to read and wides range of different options of possible diy renewable guides i’ve seen ever…
i would maybe add those… total solar radiance and wind maps or an online resource for looking it up…
something like this… understanding where there is sun and where there is wind is almost as important as understanding how the setup the technology… because the difference between good or bad locations can be like near 10x … i think here i can get 230watts pr m2 windmill area while other places its like 1000+ and this is a small county …
one should think a performance of 1/5 would keep people from building windmills in this region… sadly no… i almost cry just looking at them, because it makes me so sad people build those great things, and or buy them for such large sums and then put them in a place where they basically cannot be utilized for much…
alas i digress, where was i…
it’s a great piece you have written there… i almost feel bad for not reading it fully… but i’m sure you rarely reread it either, when you already learned what is contained within it.
"I’m living in the St.Petersburg, "
An old post Alexy, but I just wanted to say I love your city. My ex girl friend was from there and I must have visited the city at least 20 times since 2006. There is always something new to see. I also met my now wife there too. 
But she is a Siberian girl as i have posted elsewhere. I particularly love the gardens of the Catherine palace. Not such a fan of Peterhof though.
I’d love to move the family to Estonia next!
I was born in Siberia, lived there for a long time, but then I moved with my family to the St.Petersburg. I lived in Moscow some time, but returned back to this city anyway. It’s a nice place, but not enough sun.
So the next move should be to place with more sun 
4 Likes
From 2007-2010 I was in the Sultanate of Oman. I started in the capital Muscat and then we relocated to the site later in construction at Sohar. We got plenty of sun!
We even played cricket.
Oman was an awesome experience and I’m so glad I went but by the end of the 3.5 years I was tired of it and it was time to move on.
4 Likes
From there I was back in Australia 3 months before heading to Montreal in Canada. What a huge contrast… Not least because of the snow… but it did prepare me for moving to Siberia later when I got married.
5 Likes
For the most part it will be cultural so you don’t get home sick. The Netherlands if your exclude the Orange BS mentality can be a nice place to live and most people speak English so before learning the language what would be the hardest part you would not have a hard time interacting with people. Internet is pretty good here it is a connection HUB with fair prices. With Fiber being almost rolled out nation wide you should be able to set up a Node or 2 with ease.
Russia is nice but stay away from politics it is a bit of a mine field but the people tend to be generous and curtious.(my experience is mostly with the Russian military).
Tropical you have many over sea’s British Islands that you could go to. They also tend to be tax havens. If you have some sort of IT skill you can work at a bank, Do remote work via the intenet like web design/consujlting etc etc. Internet wise as they are remote not sure most likely expensive as getting cables there is hella exspensive.
I am German myself but would suggest to stay away from Germany.
Don’t get me wrong: It is a good place to live and people are generally great but if you are not used to the way of life here, it could become hard to get along with it. Especially if your previous cultural experience was different. It is really a cultural thing. I would suggest to look up why Walmart failed in Germany when they tried to enter the market here. It shows how much different the culture is from the US.
I’d love a good read on that (DE/EN), can you please provide a link?