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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

There are quite a few posts about this, it was working splendidly right up to the point where I moved back to Europe.

https://jacquesmattheij.com/how-to-build-a-windmill/

https://jacquesmattheij.com/how-to-build-a-windmill-ii/

Cool. I always wondered why you chose St. Josephs Island to settle from Europe. Solar costs have certainly gone down since then.

They're a fraction of what they used to be, the panels that I bought back then you can now have for 20% of the price or so. Funny enough, installation costs have gone through the roof so effectively you still pay just the same for the total installation unless you do it yourself. You'd expect that increased competition would drive down installation costs but it didn't really work out that way. I'd stay away from movable panels, it was a lot of work to put it in and cost quite a bit, for that money you can now buy far more panels which more than offsets the ability to aim them better.

Installing a windmill is something that I would not advise for novel installations unless you have a lot of room around you and quite a bit of spare time. Windmills, compared to solar are finicky devices and require a lot of thinking to get them right, solar power is much simpler.

The 'DIY powerwall' scene has turned recycling Li-Ion batteries into an art form, not all of it is done safely but some of the results are quite impressive, battery power too is now a fraction of what it cost back then and the life-span has gone up considerably, with more and more interesting options right around the corner.

Thanks for the detailed answers! As for location, how/why did you end up at St. Joseph Island?

When moving to Canada I didn't know much about the country so I rented a car in Toronto and drove out West all the way to Vancouver and back stopping along the road every hour or so to see what it was like there. St. Josephs Island really stood out from that trip so that's where I ended up.

I got blackballed for life at Avis for that stunt, they had an 'unlimited mileage' two week offer for very little money, they gave me a brand new car, I averaged 1000 per day or so :)

Did you have to take it in or swap, so the car could get an oil change?

I just returned it at the end of the two week period.

It was nicely broken in by then.

I really enjoyed reading the first post about how you went about it. Impressive.

Thank you, that was a lot of fun. Current project: maximum range e-bike :)

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