Solar Panels -> How To Store the Energy?

[Miravlix]

Wow, your base doesn't use much power.

 

It's not even half of what mine uses.

 

And I gave up on the map as I hadn't build half the power using items I wanted and I ran out of ideas for generating power.

 

The dev's designed the solar power system to have one optimal layout.

 

1 Panel is precisely the size of the reach of a drill to remove regolith, so 2 tiles for a drill, 2 solar panels, 2 tiles for a drill, 2 solar panels. Nothing else you can do than that, unless you use Dupe power to remove the regolith?

[Nitroturtle]

2 minutes ago, Miravlix said:

Wow, your base doesn't use much power.

 

It's not even half of what mine uses.

 

And I gave up on the map as I hadn't build half the power using items I wanted and I ran out of ideas for generating power.

I'm not sure how you manage to use that much power.  I'm currently generating ~12000kJ daily, between solar and steam assuming no meteor showers.  I have quite a bit of room to grow before power will be an issue.

Do you have a save file to share?  Would like to see how you're using all that power.

[Miravlix]

3 Rockets, so I loss a few solar panels to the rocket silos.

 

30+ dupes...

 

3 Aquatuners, 1 for Liquid Hydrogen, 1 For Liquid Oxygen and One for boiling Oil to Petrol, but only the Oil->Petrol one is running almost 100%. (And I do use a turbine to delete heat for the Liquid H/O production, so it generates a bit of power)

 

1 Tepidzer, but it almost never runs, even if it doesn't matter, I still implement germ killing water cleaning, but my water is mostly clean when it arrives at the tank, so rarely it's needed to be heated.

 

Power Usage Pr. Cycle around 10K and I have a ton of ideas of automation that isn't actually implemented/running. 1/3 implemented Regolith cleaning with Shove Voles and Automation to deliver the regolith to the farms. Automation for critter feeding/slime collecting, automation handling for ceramic/plastic/refined metal.

 

Still want to do things like polluted dirt automation, seems to make the dupes do a lot of work, because the pacu and sieves generate really small amounts and then the dupes try to deliver it, so they end up running 10 times, instead of just running once with one big pile of PD.

 

I do use Filters (As it wasn't until the end I finally designed a Gas Shutoff Filter solution), but I don't believe in storage, so they are only running because I actually need the resource passing through them.

 

Overproducing O2 with around 500 Kg pr. cycle.

[Nitroturtle]

None of that seems out of the ordinary or much different than my own base, though I don't have much at all in the way of critters as I just don't enjoy messing with them much.  I also don't have much setup in regards to shipping, which it sounds like you're using quite a bit.  You said usage around 10K, I assume you mean 10000kJ?  Is this from the reports page?  Would really like to see a save, as I struggle to see how you're using more than twice as much power as I am.

[paoweeotter]

1 hour ago, Nitroturtle said:

I'm not sure how you have your solar panels setup, but my current and last two bases have been able to be powered entirely using solar.  I generate a max of 5300kJ per day with solar alone and use ~4000kJ with my base at just under 1700 cycles.  Either your power usage is higher than mine, or your solar setup isn't as optimal as you think.

I'm also unsure why storing power in batteries is an issue, when the power that's being stored is being generated at zero cost.  The only cost is the hydrogen to supply the AETNs cooling the batteries.

there was a threadfrom a few months ago on solar panels where you showed a parabolic layout for maximum ppwer generation per tile. The thread also showed that you need 9 smart batteries or 5 jumbos for 1 solar panel. I just thought that was very useful. I dont want to deconstruct my suboptimal straight line panel setup now , too much work but On my next colony for sure!

[ChickenMadness]

10 hours ago, Saturnus said:

The main difference is batteries have limited storage capacity where you can heat up and store an infinite amount of steam or heat energy in general. Correctly built there is in theory no power loss in a heat energy storage.

It starts to make sense when you have 20 or more solar panels.

Great idea.

I will never build batteries again.

6 hours ago, Miravlix said:

I don't think you guys understand this game.

 

Let say we have a way of generating 10 units of something pr. cycle.

 

I then store that until I have 100 unit in storage.

 

I now design something that uses uses 20 units pr. cycle.

 

Result: Every turn the storage has 10 units less, until it reach zero and now you are using 20 units, but only generating 10 units and your base is now broken.

 

So what exactly do you think your doing with this stored power system?

 

You just need to handle small burst usage, like for bunker doors, a single Jumbo Battery can handle opening a full set of 2K wire doors.

Bruh, thats like saying.

"there is a finite supply of resources on the map. Just quit the game because they'll run out eventually."

It's to store excess that you can use in emergencies (or for whatever reason you can think of). Or in the case of solar panels it's just free resources.

[fredhp]

IMHO solar panels are very difficult to maintain and are somewhat unrealible and very fragile:  

To be useful and dupe-free, solar panel requires bunkerdoors to protect against meteor strikes, glass ceiling to protect against the "regolith shower" when the bunker door opens, auto miner to destroy regolith tiles, and conveyour system to clean regolith, shove vole farm to convert regolith to something useful , and suficient power to keep all this running. Too complicated, and a single power shortage can prevent bunkerdoors to close in time, damaging the solar panel array. 
This is why i use it only sporadically.

My favorite power generator is the Natural Gas Generator. With just one steel gas pump per geyser, and some gas reservoirs generates a lot of power, and, in late game, crude to natgas conversion plant make almost infinite power.

[Gamma17]

One thought i did not see mentioned - why store energy when you can use it and store end products?

Like overproduce a bunch of oxygen when panels are working, then turn off oxygen production when they are not and use stored oxygen.

A lot of systems can be automated like this to minimize amount of energy that has to be stored in batteries.  Basically adapting power usage to power production instead of doing it the other way. Requires some automation but seems to work pretty well for me.

 

Also for bursts (bunker doors being an example) i tend to use either a lot of coal generators or petroleum generators with storage tanks. This way there is no need to constantly loose energy storing it in batteries for rare and short bursts, actual amount of fuel consumed is very small and in case something goes wrong, unlike batteries, this generators can provide power for relatively long periods of time.

[Sasza22]

10 hours ago, fredhp said:

o be useful and dupe-free, solar panel requires bunkerdoors to protect against meteor strikes, glass ceiling to protect against the "regolith shower" when the bunker door opens, auto miner to destroy regolith tiles, and conveyour system to clean regolith, shove vole farm to convert regolith to something useful , and suficient power to keep all this running

You need stuff up to the miners. The mined out regolith doesn`t block the light. And shove voles don`t produce anything useful really (unless you count eggs and meat). What you forgot is cooling the miners. Without cooling they will overheat eventually.

After doing the solar panel setup a few times i think i like the most when it`s connected with the rest of the power grid via heavi watt. I treat it as auxillary power that lets me save on coal/petrol/natgas but it`s not something i rely on. this way i can assure the bunker doors are powered at all times (unless power fails for the whole base which is already pretty disasterful) and the energy from solar isn`t wasted most of the time. With a simple setup and a single meteor scanner the system works without maintainance with no problems. At least until the robo miners overheat,.

[Miravlix]

On 18/1/2019 at 11:37 PM, Sasza22 said:

You need stuff up to the miners. The mined out regolith doesn`t block the light. And shove voles don`t produce anything useful really (unless you count eggs and meat). What you forgot is cooling the miners. Without cooling they will overheat eventually.

After doing the solar panel setup a few times i think i like the most when it`s connected with the rest of the power grid via heavi watt. I treat it as auxillary power that lets me save on coal/petrol/natgas but it`s not something i rely on. this way i can assure the bunker doors are powered at all times (unless power fails for the whole base which is already pretty disasterful) and the energy from solar isn`t wasted most of the time. With a simple setup and a single meteor scanner the system works without maintainance with no problems. At least until the robo miners overheat,.

 

You can put Solar Panels inside Glass Boxes and use all that Malefic Rock to drywall the Area below and a few tiles over the drilll, since my liquid hydrogen production creates a lot of oxygen, I can simply use it to cool the drills and not care it will drift into space.

 

Can't think of a way to make a liquid based drill cooling, but that would be even better as liquid has limited movement, so it can't just drift off to space.

[habuky]

On 17.1.2019 at 6:10 PM, Nitroturtle said:

I use large battery banks to store my solar power.  I use an automated shut-off to cut power from the battery bank to my main power line during meteor showers and when the batteries get below 20%.

 

Inspired by @Nitroturtles and @Smithe37s design I ended up with a lightly different solution.

I use transformers and automation to have the batteries always connected to the main grid, but to prevent that the fossil generators will try to charge them. Plus, I added some automation, that one row is charged after the other and not all at the same time, to minimise the heat.

Plus I use the battery switching automation, to have regular wire coming from my solar panels. to the Power Tower.

The bank is rather small, as my solar farm, but the concept is there and may grow/be re located. Thx for your ideas