Icarus electric grid theory - am I getting it?

[gandalf.graycloak]

Having put in some hours now and set up a few bases, I've come to this conclusion, in short form:

Your power sources need only supply enough power for your constant use, then the 6,000 kJ battery rack, built and installed, can serve as a droop compensator for segments of high usage - does that about cover it?

Lights, water pump(s), creature deterrent, and deep freeze(s) would all be constant use. Most crafting benches sit idle and only drain the grid when you make 100 of this or that, which is usually brief.

The only on/off exception I could think of would be the powered farming plots which could be "on" for a couple growth cycles, but those only pull an extra 100 each.

Oh and I wish they would fix the "Repair Bench" to auto-activate like the fabricator, et al. As it is I have to turn it on, do my repair(s), then NOT FORGET to turn it off. If something as capable as the Fabricator can auto-activate with all the wonderful stuff it can do, why not the Repair Bench?

[william_es]

Yes, basically you nailed it.

You have your total power supplied, from all sources (biofuel generators, wind, solar, etc).

You have your total power demand from everything requiring power, that's turned on.

If supply can't fill the demand, it will pull power from batteries (if you have any).
Once supply exceeds demand, it begins charging any batteries below 100% back up to full.

I recommend for all the "on all the time" things like fridges, freezers, etc that you have a number of always on power suppliers. My go to is wind turbines.

Turbines do though take damage and begin to provide less and less power until repaired. So I always throw extra wind turbines into the grid to compensate. The goal is that the always on stuff should never exceed the power supplied by turbines, even if they were all badly damaged (and putting out very low amounts).

For the rest of the your stuff, either use batteries or wait and only use high energy consumers during the day (if you have solar).

I don't like having to wait, so I have 5 advanced battery packs, with 30000 total storage. I just use everything full tilt regardless of time of day or night. I'll have 2 electric furnaces running, the chemistry bench, materials processor, and all the fridges, freezers, grow plots etc. The lowest I've ever seen is 23000/30000 used. When morning broke, I had 4 solar panels kick in and recharged it back up to 30000 very quickly.