Power production/Dealing with priorities

< Power production | Dealing with priorities

The Electricity/Priority of power production is every month part of a discussion. This page tries to bring all points of this discussion together.

The electric priority

See Generators: the generator types have different priorites.

Solar Panel

Steam engine

Basic accumulator

This means,

• if the solar panels don't produce enough power
• that the steam engine begins to jump in and
• if that is still not before the accumulators will be unloaded.

This works also in the other way: The accumulators are only loaded, if the demand of all other consumers are fulfilled.

Why is the priority not configurable in the game?

This seems to be the logical solution. And many suggestions (and discussions) in the forum are going around this (sometimes controversia). Examples:

• Accumulator Controls
• Day/Night Switches
• Accumulator priority based on charge level
• Automatic steam power control with solar
• Solar sensor on the wiki page seems wrong to me
• Power production priority
• Can steam generators be used in emergencies only?
• Power Priority; ideas wanted

And much more...

The problem with all these suggestions (and needs) is, that the single solution is simple, but they are more or less uncombineable with the other suggestions. They are disjunct.

• That is eventually the biggest reason, why this isn't implemented yet in one or the other way.
• The other reason why this isn't implemented in this simple way is, that Factorio will get at some point some kind of sensor and more advanced Smart bus-sensor for that. This is on the Roadmap for the next versions.
• Reason 3 is, that if a manual switching of priorities (or other ideas) is implemented, this will need manual control. Factorio is about automatism, so this is a direct opposite to switch things on and off.
• You can have several Electricity/Electric networks, which is the one, you want to switch?

So this isn't that easy. :)

Till then, see down for some more or less well made solutions.

How to switch off steam engines in the night, when enough accumulator capacity is available?

At some point, when you have enough solar panels and accumulators you may use the steam engines only as silent power-reserve, for example at the end of the night after a long fight. This is normally not possible, because steam engines have a higher priority than accumulators - accumulators are only discharged if nothing else delivers. Or in other words, when the sun goes down, the steam engines turn on to keep the accumulators charged.

But you can trick around this.

A way to set this up without complicate cabling

• Switching on power plants automatically when needed.
• Minimal Steam Power.
• http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6617&p=51742#p51714
• http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6617
• http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6665

The "old" way

The accumulator (hovered) is loaded from the main network. The accu-powered-network unloads this accu to power the fast inserter. If the accu is empty, the fast inserter doesn't work anymore, but the basic inserter remains working, because he is powered by the main network. He unloads the remaining wood from the chest. The chest gets empty and the smart inserter begins to work, filling up coal into the boiler.

For simpleness we reduced it to only one boiler/steam engine, normally much more is needed to make sense! Note, that you only need to program the first inserter. Place the others with pressed shift-key. All you have to do then is to connect it with the wire.

Basically this works, because the accumulator in this picture unloads a bit faster, than the accus in the main network, because he stays in two networks and so a bit more power is needed. It is recommended to place a second accu in neighborhood, which sits in the main network to have a direct reference.

You can trim the accu powered network exactly to your needs by adding more accumulators or place some lights, or put in more wood, which extends or shorten the time before the accu(s) - and so the chest - is empty. With some experience you can trim this so, that the main accu power is empty after the steam engines are full powered again (it takes some time, until the boilers heat the water and steam engines are at full power again.)

File:Autoshutoff2.png

The red circle is the "sensor". Watch the green wires going to the inserters.

The chests with the burner inserters holding wood in his hand (so the chests must be filled with wood), is for fallback, if coal goes out.

Various different setups seem possible...

Notes

See how to setup Smart inserters! See how to cable Circuit network.

Using modules

• Smart Circuit Systems
• Power-Switch-Mod