Minimal Steam Power

[MeduSalem]

I do understand though. You're saying that those steam engines are being split equally by the accumulators?

In the analogy the Steam Engines would be the Keg... and the Accumulators are the cans that you drink of equally... so basically the energy draw from the accumulators is split evenly accross all your accumulators until they are all dry - except the ones that are constantly being refilled by the Steam Engines.

That way the Steam Engines are only running once there's not enough energy in the accumulators. (With a little leakage though since the energy draw is equally across all accumulators)

I like how Australian = Beer to DerivePi.

Not just beer. Crocodiles and hot women too

How does that work out?

Crocodiles & Hot Women = Beer

or

Australian = Beer, Crocodiles & Hot Women?

[LazyLoneLion]

It's still too complex for my 3-years-old brain %)

I'll try to explain and you fix my mistakes, if any.

There is "main factory" grid - like with production of the bots, batteries, blue science, etc. And there is the "critical grid" -- like with coal mining and defences, isolated from the main block with few accumulators, right?
Let's say the "main block" consumes 30 MWt.
Are we supposing that we have those 30MWt of solar power? Even more - like 60 MWt for charging the accus too.
And you mean that normally the steam does not kick in, so normally your coal mining and defences are shut off. In case you need defences they work not from the main grid, but mainly from a steam, even in daytime.

So, the main advantage is that you don't need extra accus for the critical part in a critical conditions (because you have steam for that case and few solar panels+acc).

What I don't understand is why we need some special interconnection between grids. Let it be separate grids. Main grid works from solar, defences work from steam (with small standby from solar) when they are needed. Why bother with interconnection?

[DerivePi]

The "main factory" grid that powers the entire factory consists of solar panels and accumulators - no steam generators. It covers all items, including coal mining and defenses.

Now, off to the side you have your steam gens that are completely cut off from the main power grid. The only job these steam gens have is to power a group of accumulators. This group of accumulators is also covered by the main power grid (use shift click on the power poles to disconnect wires and then use copper cables to selectively connect the covering poles so the 2 networks both cover the accumulators but are not directly cabled to each other - I usually use substations right next to each others but disconnected from each other with big electric poles connecting back to the two separate power grids).

During the day, the accumulators are fully charged and the steam gens have nothing to do. When the sun goes down, the accumulators start to discharge and then the steam gens turn on to recharge only the accumulators that are in the connected group (if there are 100 accumulators on the main grid and only 10 of those are backed up with the steam gens, then the steam gens only provide 10% of the night power). If all of the accumulators across the main network are fully used up, the accumulators in the group will still have a charge since they are being recharged by the steam gens. At this point, the accumulators in the group will be the only power supply for the "main factory" power grid and may get maxed out to their discharge/recharge rate (of the original 100 accumulators, only 10 now have a charge and they are providing 100% of the power for the main grid - up to the 300 kW discharge rate per accumulator).

[LazyLoneLion]

then after 90 accs have been discharged (out of 100 total) how could ten charged accs power whole factory including defenses? Wont your defenses work 10 times slower (and the whole factory too)?

[DerivePi]

90 accumulators are using up their stored energy (hopefully at a rate well less than the max). The 10 accumulators are just transferring energy from the steam gens at their max rate (300 kW).

Brings up a good point though. You should have a ratio of about 1 out of 6 accumulators backed up with steam gens to balance this.

[LazyLoneLion]

90 accumulators are using up their stored energy (hopefully at a rate well less than the max).

No hope for that, since we are talking about a case when accumulators became fully discharged.

The 10 accumulators are just transferring energy from the steam gens at their max rate (300 kW).

That's right. And that rate is 9 times less than the rate that was not enough -- with 90 main accumulators. So, in crisis time we have a rate of discharge at least 9 times less than normal, and our defenses work 9 times slower than normal too. Aren't they?

Again, I'm just a noob, and trying to understand.

[zytukin]

I'm probably just not understanding what your trying to do, but, are you trying to avoid using purely solar and accumulators?
Build enough solar and accumulators and you wont need steam as a backup.

I haven't touched my steam engines since switching to solar/accumulators back when my factory was much smaller then it is now.


I had assemblers making the solar panels and accumulators and I placed them via blueprints.

power.jpg (328.9 KiB) Viewed 4076 times

During the daytime, the 9.1k panels easily provide enough power to run my factory.

power-day.jpg (244.94 KiB) Viewed 4076 times

At night, the 11k accumulators provide more then enough power for my factory to run overnight only getting down to around 75% charge.
11k Accumulators with a max 300kw output per means a max draw of over 3 million MW. Easily enough for spikes.

power-night.jpg (190.15 KiB) Viewed 4076 times

The 9.1k Solar panels can output more then double what the factory needs so spikes are no issue at all. Plus, they can recharge the accumulators pretty quickly once daytime comes.

power-charging.jpg (225.69 KiB) Viewed 4076 times

[DerivePi]

90 accumulators are using up their stored energy (hopefully at a rate well less than the max).

No hope for that, since we are talking about a case when accumulators became fully discharged.

At max rate discharge, your accumulators will last less than 17 seconds at night time. That will give you another 25 seconds of complete black out to think about why you are still carrying around 2 stacks of accumulators. Once you've finished placing your accumulators and solar panels and have a mostly balanced electric supply system (ie your accumulators are discharging at a rate well less than the max), you can fiddle with this back up steam power system so that during extreme events (banks of laser turrets being activated), you will have surplus power to get through the emergency. Attracting biter attacks at night time by running through their nests and then back to your base is not recommended with this (or any?) system.