Solar panel

Solar panel

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Recipe
10 + 5 + 15 + 5 → 1
Total raw
28.75 + 27.5 + 15 + 5
Map color
Health	200 260 320 380 500
Stack size	50
Dimensions	3×3
Power output	60 kW (full daylight) 42 kW (average) 17.5 MJ per day 100% 130% 160% 190% 250%
Mining time	0.1
Prototype type	solar-panel
Internal name	solar-panel
Required technologies
Produced by
Consumed by

Solar panels are an unlimited source of free energy that produce no pollution. During daylight hours every panel provides the maximum power level, 60kW. Generated power will increase/decrease linearly during dusk and dawn, and no power is produced at night. This means one solar panel produces an average of 42 kW over one day and night cycle. The energy gain is different when built on other planets, given their distance from the Sun.

In Factorio: Space Age, the power output of the solar panel varies, depending on the location of the planet, and whether the solar panel is in space.

Energy management

As already stated, solar panels produce energy only during the day, but you are likely to want your factory running at night as well. Accumulators can be charged up with solar panels during the day to power the base at night.

Accumulators are not the only way to work with solar energy. Sometimes it is more economical to just avoid consuming energy at night. For example, if you power a bunch of electric mining drills and electric furnaces to produce iron and copper plates, you could build more drills and furnaces than you actually need, and store the excess metal production during the day. At night you can shut down the drills and furnaces, and let your factory run with the stored plates. Instead of storing energy, you would be storing what the energy is used for. The easiest way to achieve this is by connecting all your extractors and furnaces to an electric network with exactly enough solar panels to make them work during the day, and keeping this network away from your factory's main electric network.

Notes

• A single (normal quality) solar panel outputs an average of 42 kW over a day on Nauvis and requires 0.84672 accumulators to sustain a constant power output through the night (exact numbers, not rounded).
• It takes approximately 23.8 solar panels to operate 1 MW of factory and charge 20.2 accumulators to sustain that 1 MW through the night.
• The optimal ratio for normal quality solar panels to charge enough normal quality accumulators on Nauvis is 2646 accumulators for 3125 solar panels (supplying 42 kW per solar panel).

Space Age

In Space Age, the closer a planet is to the sun, the more power a solar panel on its surface produces. Additionally, as there is no nighttime in space, solar panels on space platforms will generate energy constantly, and at a higher rate than on a planet's surface.

Location	In Atmosphere	In Space
Vulcanus	400%	600%
Nauvis	100%	300%
Gleba	50%	200%
Fulgora	20%	120%
Aquilo	1%	60%
Solar system edge	N/A	1%
Shattered planet	N/A	1%

Achievements

Solaris Produce more than 10 GJ per hour using only solar panels.

Steam all the way Launch a rocket to space without building any solar panels.

History

• 0.13.2:
  • Changed tech requirement from Adv. Electronics to Electronics.

• 0.12.11:
  • Energy of the solar panel is now fractioned between all the networks it's connected to.

• 0.12.0:
  • Massive optimisations to solar panel logic.

• 0.11.0:
  • Significantly slowed crafting speed to 10 secs from 0.5 sec.

• 0.7.1:
  • Made solar panels pre-science pack 3.

• 0.5.0:
  • Unplugged icon shown when not connected to any power transfer device.

• 0.3.0:
  • New solar panel graphics.

• 0.2.1:
  • Priority of power consumption changed to consume from solar panel first.

• 0.1.0:
  • Introduced

See also

• Electric system
• Accumulator
• Calculating the optimal ratio of accumulators to solar panels
• A Solar Power Excel sheet
• (Forum topic) The way I solar
• Game-day