Where to build solar panels?

[󠀡󠀡]

I'm trying to optimize my solar panel placement and I'm wondering about the most efficient location for solar panels.

One idea is to build solar panels at the equator spread evenly or in a full ring later on. That way your power doesn't fluctuate.

Others have mentioned building solar panels at the poles. Is this better placement than the equator?

There are three factors that might be relevant. Planets have a tilt angle, their orbits have an inclination, and they either orbit a gas giant or the star directly.

How do these factors affect the placement of solar panels?

[ColeEyre]

I build a band of them 5 wide circling the planet at the equator

[3Ddeath]

I just found areas that don't have a lot of land and a bunch of water around it that I didn't want to build factories on to place them.

Its hard to calculate the orbit plus the gas giant to figure it out, I didn't bother.

[!?!]

Originally posted by quaixor:

Others have mentioned building solar panels at the poles. Is this better placement than the equator?

Yes, the equator has the best building space with the lowest grid distortion.
The grid on the poles sucks, it's super awkward to build factories on them.
So might as well slap them full of solar panels.

[cswiger]

Either the planet is tidally locked, in which case build Solar Panels on the sunny side, or else any given panel will see some daylight and some night-time periods over the course of a planet's year.

Building a ring at the equator and some around each pole seems to be pretty common. If the planet has good wind, I might use those around the equator instead.

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by !?!:

Originally posted by quaixor:

Others have mentioned building solar panels at the poles. Is this better placement than the equator?

Yes, the equator has the best building space with the lowest grid distortion.
The grid on the poles sucks, it's super awkward to build factories on them.
So might as well slap them full of solar panels.

Makes sense. If you place an equal number of solar panels at both poles then the day/night and winter/summer cycle is factored out, similar to making a belt around the equator. In my game I placed batteries at the poles.

[vacri]

Originally posted by quaixor:

One idea is to build solar panels at the equator spread evenly or in a full ring later on. That way your power doesn't fluctuate.

Others have mentioned building solar panels at the poles. Is this better placement than the equator?

I run my materials bus along the equator so I can build industries on either side. If the equator has a ring of solar panels, then every single material that has to cross over the 'fence' created by the panels has to be routed up to level 4+. So I just create patches of solar panels here and there, put a patch on the opposite-ish side of the planet as well, and one of them will be making power.

[Mr. Fibble]

Building solar at the poles varies with how much wobble the planet has during its orbit, some poles can at times be in permanent nighttime. Take a look from the system view and see how the planet behaves and what resources it has before deciding what option to go with.

Equatorial rings do take up prime real estate as it's much easier to build without having the grids shift the way they do near the poles. But if you're using drones rather than belts to transport stuff around then a solar ring won't get in the way.

[fambaa]

Equator ring for planets that use a ton of power. Depending on the sun strenght 1 full ring gives around 100MW. Pole setup is enough to maybe power a tower and a few miners just for mining there and shipping. Doesn't require as many panels and they wont be exposed to 100% all the time but way less panels.
1 entire ring around a planet is 600 solar panels btw.

[Ri0Rdian]

I wonder whether there is a planet that is not tidally locked yet has such rotation that either of the poles is always illuminated. I know poles are less than ideal to build on but for power it does not really matter at all.

[Valar Morghulis]

I build mine at the poles between wind generators.

[Z0MBE]

At the poles of the planet you can have constant energy and frankly it's op

If you look at the orbit of the planet, in some cases the planet dips down and exposes the top side to more sunlight, so you could have energy there for half the period of the planet's orbit or whatever

[NanoTech]

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1750181048587938564/E32954A75CBACC6095004AC996D040A8D6742C9E/

[Ragnaman]

I ignore solar panels, either you use wind or Ray receivers at planet poles. Unless you find a tidally locked planet and you have no plans on building dyson sphere for ray receivers.

[3Ddeath]

It's fun to place them in patterns

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2385962372

[Ri0Rdian]

Originally posted by 3Ddeath:

It's fun to place them in patterns

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2385962372

Yep, at poles I do circles too, looks awesome and is easy to not to waste space too.



Looked like my lava planet had North pole in sunlight all the time. Turned out it was only for half a year, the other half a year it's darkness and South pole is the one enjoying sun.
I ended up having 2 sets of solar panels at both poles, so at least one is working xD

Though that will be useless now with Solar sails, but I still need 2 ray receivers :F

Shame there is no way to quickly tell if a part of a planet is constantly illuminated or not, waiting whole orbital period while looking at a spinning planet does not look like much fun :D