Power production
Electricity and Liquids have many interactions and can be incredibly difficult to learn- this page documents several important components of electricity production.
How many pumps and burners are needed?
Hot liquids
Steam engines, pumps and boilers
| Situation | # of steam engines | # of boilers | # offshore pumps | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One steam engine | 1 | 2 | 1 | Could be used in very niche situations |
| One off-shore pump | 10 | 14 | 1 | A very popular and widely-used setup |
| Full throughput of a pipe | max. 21 | max. 28 | 3 | Total throughput depends on the length of the pipe |
Each steam engine needs roughly 1.31 boilers when running at full capacity.
One offshore pump can satisfy 14 Boilers and 10 steam engines. 13 boilers will make the job also, but this tends to have problems to raise the temp after coal shortness or other accidents (Biters love to attack the boilers).
To fully satisfy a pipe you need 3 Pumps or 5 Small pumps (or better 6, but that depends on pressure!). But with this setup you will find, that the length of your pipe-setup will influence this too much. This is definitely not a beginner strategy.
See also
Hot liquids in tanks
To equalize the needed throughput (different needs of energy between day and night for example), hot water from boilers can also be stored in storage tanks and used by extra steam engines during peak times or during night (if solar is in place). This energy storage technique can be used instead of or in addition to accumulators.
See about storing of hot liquids how to use that.
Solar Panels/Accumulators
Optimal ratio
The optimal ratio is 0.84 (21:25) accumulators per solar panel, and 23.8 solar panels per megawatt required by your factory (this ratio accounts for solar panels needed to charge the accumulators).
A "close enough" ratio is 20:24:1 accumulators to solar panels to megawatts required (for example, a factory requiring 10 MW can be approximately entirely powered, day and night, by 200 accumulators and 240 solar panels - this approximation differs from optimal only in that it calls for 2 extra solar panels, which is negligible).
This is taken from Accumulator / Solar Panel Ratio (which calculates this in an impressive mathematical way!) and another post in that thread (which calculates the solar panel to megawatt ratio in a much less impressive way).
There are also these related older threads:
- http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5168
- http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5394
- http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7619
Perfect placing
- Big Solar Farm: About the perfect placing of panels
- 9x9 Blueprint: A suggestion for a repeatable tile with a 5:6 accumulator to solar panel ratio that happens to coincide with the 20:24 "close enough" ratio above (4 of these tiles can provide 1 MW of continuous power).
Why am I not producing enough energy?
Try this checklist before you completely revamp your power source. You may also use this to rectify negative feedback loops.
- Did you connect the steam engine to the Electric network? If not, a flash is blinking (to show, that it is not connected). Add some power poles near the steam engines that go to machines needing that power.
- Did you build up your liquid network as described in the Liquids/Tutorials? We mean: No parallel piping, the water for the first steam engine must go through all boilers.
- Do you have enough pumps? You need 1 pump for every 10 steam engines. See Power production/Optimal ratios. It doesn't make sense to have more than 3 Pumps, as the pipes cannot transport more water.
- Do your pipes have water? Look at the glass windows in the pipes, hover over the pipes! Place some pipes or a tank at the end to see if there is really water coming through. Perhaps you have mixed your pipes with oil - this trick reveals also that.
- Do you have enough Boilers? The water temperature should reach 100 degrees. One of your burners should be reserve (not much used, no lights in the burner) when you need to restart the energy system.
There are some points, which can show you, what are the needs or what can be changed in the liquid network:
- If your steam engines can keep up 510 W of output during heavy load (when electric poles display satisfaction below 100%), it is safe to add more engines.
- If an engine displays a temperature below 100 degrees, add more boilers.
- If you look into the engines and the available energy is below 100%, add boilers/pumps or add a new line to your power plant.
- If needed energy is much below the available energy, all is fine.
- There are also tricks to avoid using too much power. See Electric network.
How do I store energy?
Work
Work is "stored energy" or the "result of using power". If you divide the work into parts and release the parts in some time you have energy.
Work is measured in Joules, which is one Watt over the time of one second. See Units#Work.
Types of work
Work is available (or storable) as
- Fuel.
- Capacity in the Basic accumulators.
- Hot liquids. You can create them in the Boiler and store serious amount in the Storage Tank.
Energy / Power
Energy is the "ability to do work". The speed of this doing needs more or less power. The faster something works, the more power is needed, but the result (the work) is the same. In Factorio this is also used a lot to calculate, how much time is needed to produce stuff.
Energy is measured in Watts, nearly every device in Factorio needs energy to work. Energy is produced by Generators, Boiler- or other burner- (or motor-driven) devices (like the car or train).
See Units#Power.
Types of energy
= Fuel-based (Boiler, Burner)
Fuel contains a certain amount of energy. The fuel is burned and produces energy (which is converted into movement or heat) and Pollution is emitted.
There are some devices, which can use fuel directly.
Electricity
Electricity is produced by Generators. The distribution is made over an Electric network, and it is used by Electricity/Consumers.
That's the single parts! The whole process is also explained as Power Production.
Electricity is the only way to transport energy over long distances. Electricity itself doesn't pollute, the pollution comes either from burning fuel or consuming electricity.
What else can I do with accumulators?
Isolation of Power Networks
Accumulators can be used to isolate two separate power networks, which has a number of uses. Since accumulators have a lower delivery priority than any other entity, this guarantees that they only receive energy when you have enough left over after powering all other entities in a network. At the same time, accumulators can also be used to deliver energy in another electrical network, and can charge and discharge at the same time. Consider the following example:
The two power networks A and B are not directly connected to each other: They are connected only through the accumulators, which are shared by both networks. This is accomplished by setting up electric poles for each network connected to the accumulators, then ensuring the sets of poles are not connected to each other (which can be done by crafting a copper wire then dragging it between two connected poles to sever the connection, exactly as is done for disconnecting circuit wires).
In the above example:
- The accumulators will only charge if extra power is being produced by network A or B.
- The accumulators will discharge as needed into either network if one is not producing enough power.
- Since the maximum input/output rate of an accumulator is 300kW, power flow between the two networks will be limited to 300kW times the number of accumulators (1.5MW in the example).
- Note that this isolation is bidirectional: Either network can charge the accumulators, and the accumulators can discharge into either network.
This technique can be used whenever this type of isolation is desired.
Reduce Energy Consumption in Critical Situations
In particular, one good use for the above technique is to limit electricity consumption in low power situations by isolating non-critical parts of your factory (such as Radar, Labs, Electric furnaces, electric miners, Beacons, etc.) from critical parts (such as lasers, ammo production, or whatever your priorities are).
To do this, place your main generators and critical components on one network and place your non-critical components on another network, isolating the two as above. Now, two things will happen:
- Power will only flow to the non-critical network when you are generating a surplus on the main network, and
- The rate will always be limited to 300kW per accumulator.
Because the accumulators will only receive power if you have a surplus on the main network, this will in effect deactivate the low-priority network when electricity is in short supply. This will also limit power consumption by the low priority network if its usage becomes high, for example if you have two factories on a low priority network and usually only one of them runs at a time, if both happen to run they won't consume more than the total limit, they'll just slow down.
Essentially you are saying "only deliver power to these systems if I have enough to spare, and even then don't exceed this delivery rate".
In general this is a technique which works well when you've just researched accumulators and solar panels, but don't have enough resources to build big solar farms and accumulator farms yet.
Minimizing need for Steam power
Order of with accu connected networks
- Powering sequence - the order in which accumulators are loaded. This is also about how the electric network orders internally new networks.
I have enough accumulator capacity available. How can I switch off steam engines in the night? What priorities should I give my energy consumers and producers?
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
- Analog Circuits - Advanced power systems
The "old" way
File:T&T electric network1.jpg
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.pngThe 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
How do I build electricity poles?
| Item | Total raw | Coverage area | Own size | Absolute / Effective coverage (in Tile) | Cov. rel. to small el. pole | Wire reach |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
|
5 x 5 | 1 x 1 | 25 / 24 | 100% | 8 |
| |
|
7 x 7 | 1 x 1 | 49 / 48 | 196% | 9 |
| |
|
4 x 4 | 2 x 2 | 16 / 12 | 65% | 30 |
 |
|
14 x 14 | 2 x 2 | 196 / 192 | 784% | 14 |
| |
|
Wire reach depends on joined poles | ||||
Poles
The poles have a coverage area, any entity in this area is connected to the electric network, even if only one tile is touching the area.
They have also a reach. This is the maximum distance you can connect two poles. If you autoplace poles, it will connect with that reach.
Autoplacing poles
It is obvious, that belts and all other entities can be placed in masses by keep pressing the place key. This works for power poles too: Hold place-key (default is right mouse button). The first pole is set. Now run in any direction and keep pressing the key. The next pole is set at the farthest point and connects to the previous.
This works also from car or train, which enables you to place the electric poles very quickly over long distances!
Pole types and it's usages
The small- and medium-electric pole are the basic poles you need. Note, that the small electric pole can be burned, cause it can be in almost every case replaced by the medium.
The big pole is quite different. It is used, to connect over long distances, see the quite small coverage area against the very long wire reach. This pole should be choosen to connect outposts. It is recommended to use it near lakes, cause so you can in many cases span a very large area without using much land.
The substation is different, cause it covers a large area. With the next updates it is awaited to be automateable: You can turn it on and off depending on some conditions (see Smart inserter, like a big switch and with it all connected entities.
Cables (and Wires)
When you place an electric pole it will automatically cable itself to other poles in range. These cables are "free" and do not consume any copper cable. If you remove these cables, you can regenerate them by removing and rebuilding the pole.
You generally don't need to manually add copper wires, because any pole in range will be connected automatically by the free wires. Placing copper wire is only useful when you need multiple separate networks.
Remove cables
Remove all cables from an electric pole by shift-left-clicking it. The pole will become an independent electric network. You can reconnect it to other poles by placing cables manually.
Add cables or wires
A cable or wire can be added by holding it in your hand, then left-clicking the base of one pole, then left-clicking the base of another. Use copper cable for the electric network, or red/green wires for the circuit networks. Note that the wire item is consumed when you make the connection; you will not get it back if you remove the pole's wires, or if you remove the pole itself.
See also
Can I also store hot water?
You can store a significant amount of energy as hot liquid in Storage Tanks!
A completely filled tank with water at 100 degrees stores 212 Megajoules! This is the equivalent to 42 Basic accumulators, but the tanks needs only 3x3 tiles of space. This way you can store much more energy in a much smaller place: 23.5 MJ / Tile vs. 1.2 MJ / Tile
The details are explained in Liquids/Pipe physics. Read more about this: Yet another "Steam engine backup" solution (simple&low tech).
There are several advantages to storing energy in storage tanks vs. storing it in an accumulator:
- You don't need to produce electrical energy first.
- The energy density per tile is much higher than it is with batteries.
- You won't get sudden blackouts when you're out of power. Instead, power goes out gradually as pressure drops.
Using hot water before accumulators are available
By adding storage tanks just after your steam engines, you can delay researching accumulators.
During the day, when your solar panels are working, your steam engines won't need as much power, allowing your storage tanks to fill up. During the night, when your solar panels are not functioning, the contents of your storage tanks will be used to generate power.
This strategy has two upsides:
- You can check how well your power production fulfills your needs by looking at the storage tanks.
- You don't need as many boilers because the ones you do have can simply work full time.
See also
How do solar farms work?
How can create a liquids network?
- Video about basics of liquids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlYN7C7iBmQ
- About the new pump: http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2317#p17318
- About usage of oil and how it is pumped: http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2301
- About chemical industry: http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2343#p17289
See also
http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3724