Behind the scenes, studio operating 100% on solar thanks to Bluetti #PowerYourPassion
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My lifelong passion is video game development. Given the theme #PowerYourPassion, let me share a few behind-the-scene moments of the journey, with some pictures of the studio I’ve founded, and run on a daily basis with my small team; and of course, how Bluetti comes into play 
Video game design has become my main activity two years ago. Until then, it was a side activity, in parallel to my career as a freelance consultant, software engineering. I still have some consulting work done to help the studio survive, as there’s now 4 of us working here.
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A typical year in the life a young studio involves a lot of prototyping: it’s about turning an idea into a working draft that gives a publisher a good idea of what you’re accomplishing. The publisher can then decide whether to support you financially to make the game happen. They also handle distribution and marketing to reach the audience.
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Here, you see two titles being actively worked on in my studio:
Notice that green glow under the desk, on the right?
It’s our Bluetti solar UPS. Plenty of power on tap.
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The whole activity has been solar-powered for the past 15 months already.
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Today is a beautiful Autumn day. Slightly cloudy, but sunny nonetheless. More than enough to run the daily needs of the office - it’s 11 AM and we’re producing 2kW, with about 400-500W of power draw:
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The unit is operating 24/7 as we’re hosting our own servers. Considering the cost of renting cloud servers, we’ve decided to capitalize upon our renewable mindset and we’re quite happy with the result:
- We don’t rent computers in a datacenter, we prefer to buy second hand super-small form factor computers (Dell Optiplex 3060 from 2019) on Backmarket for a fraction of the price. That’s still 4 cores and 32GB of ram per unit and they draw between 15W and 65W depending on the workload.
- We don’t need air conditioning to cool down the room. On the contrary, the computers and Bluetti inverter actually help maintaining a decent temperature throughout the year (~18°C). The office is North facing, and halfway underground. It is a natural insulation against both heat and cold. Summer reaches 24°C in spite of the devices running 24/7.
- our Bluetti solar UPS keeps the servers, network appliances and internet router up whatever grid mishaps or main breaker failure.
- with only 5-6 hours of decent solar harvest in Autmun/Winter, two B300s are enough to support the continuous 200W power draw of the servers & network equipment from the end of the afternoon to the middle of the next morning.
- each workstation adds about 120-200W of load during the day. So when the office is full and the computers working under load, we’re almost drawing 1kW.
- We can still start an electric heater (1800W) on very cold days, and kettle (2kW) or Expresso machine (1.5KW) for our favorite hot beverages. Just don’t operate the kettle AND the expresso machine if the heater is operating. Otherwise we justify the 99% uptime instead of the 100% target uptime of our servers availability
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This office is my dream mancave come true really:
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At the back, we also have the designer’s desk:
We’re trying to create a new version of our original character, this time in pixel art. Only one design will make it in production, so this is really “behind the scenes”
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That space was equipped for remote fitness classes during Covid. It’s still useful today for those who want to do a Body Pump class or a core training session at the end of the day - that picture dates back to last winter, when the unit was still partially hidden in the alcove:
Watch me suffer.
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Some of us are camera shy. Actually, all of us. They’d rather not appear on social media, so let me introduce the team considering everyone’s social media shyness:
A former colleague from 2013 who, in the meantime has become an employee (since 2021). She’s mostly handling market related tasks, and as procurement specialist, she also does some consulting, admin work and social media.
Sasha, our artist. Cat lover, with Minerva (black cat, orange eyes) and Aurora (white, blue eyes) always around him.
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Now meet Maciej, our swiss knife, specialized in character animation and all-purpose game designer:
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We hire two freelancers for music composition and testing. They’re frequent fliers, but not really part of the team and they work remotely.
Finally, there’s me, the studio founder, another jack of all trades, specialized in software architecture and programming:
With my serious face on.
Let’s get a more friendly look on that face:
You probably remember that I’m the treehouse guy from previous posts. It’s offgrid thanks to solar power and 5G data connection. I dream of replacing the mobile data router with a Starlink connection, but that’s probably overkill.
Another desk, in the treehouse / tiny home office:
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Speaking of overkill - I’d love to replace the oversized AC300 with an AC70, so winning one with this contest would be just perfect. This would allow the AC300 to be used in a place where its large inverter can be put to good use as we only, really, need 1000W peak in the tower.
Having 3x 400W panels reinforces how much P70 is the perfect candidate there, provided that I rewire the panels in parallel (37Voc, 3:1 overpanelling is very useful in Autumn / Winter).
See, AC300 and its B300 often need to leave the tower, climb down the ladder, hop into the car and go for some other off-grid adventures.
Yes, coffee machines follow me everywhere. It’s easy to explain - what is a programmer?
A: It’s a macro-organism that turns caffeine into computer code.
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ba-dum tss, that was a terrible joke.
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Daddy joke maybe, and I’m more than lucky to have a small version of me with whom I can share my passion, teaching him things little by little and reviving games that are now 30 years old…
Two winters ago, we turned his favorite plush into a pixel art character for a small video game.
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Next up is to convert him to solar power, just like Dadda… Thanks for reading!
Calling all creative minds! Are you well-informed about BLUETTI’s upcoming AC70 and AC2A?
“Power Your Passion!” Campaign is an opportunity for you to showcase how your passion aligns with the portable power of BLUETTI’s AC70 and AC2A.
Whether you are into photography, outdoor cooking, or music, we invite you to create a unique project that incorporates the fast-charging and lightweight features of our portable power stations. Show us how you will power your passion with BLUETTI AC70 and AC2A!
Tag #PowerYourPassion and reply to this post with no less than 180 words to qualify for the contest.
Campaign ends on November 5th.
The most innovative and captivating project wins the AC70, and the second-best project wins the AC2A.
. If so, i would love to receive a like on this post. 
haha they deserve it though. They are all incredible people and have earned the right to be completely pampered at this stage in their life! 
, no need to bring a magician with me 
Thank You all for the entries in 
