Large Scale Hydroelectricity generation - the bits and bobs I learned

[Chance]

tldr: Hydro generator waterfalls seem to need four+ waterpump 'pipelines' to sustain one waterfall. Each waterfall provides full power to whatever number of generators you can fit. The space and material investment make other methods far more attractive.

I wanted to make a large-scale high tech city with as few workers as possible, but power generation was a concern I had. To try and solve this problem, I crafted a large scale waterfall system in my city to create endless hydroelectric power in vast amounts. This seems to be working fairly well.

Since water can be moved for free by the pumps in game and hydrogenerators do not actually consume water, this method involves no maintenance, but does require a large amount of space.

A look at the top portion of the first draft of the system I have:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3366379950

The pumps can act as walls to each other as water climbs up the pump pipeline which saves space. The ladders all over the place are simply the scaffolding I never bothered to remove. Be aware: I think that even ladders can impede water movement which is why the area around the waterfall spout is cleared.

The pipe system I used in this pass was seven pipes wide, but not all are active in this system when feeding one spout.

The waterfall feeds into 20 hydro generators, placed 10 to a side, alternating, to conserve space. The end result for 20 generators came out to 250 WpH (note: It took a long time for the system to 'settle'...more than several in-game days. YMMV). Yes the math seems funky, but this is the reading from the game itself.

The height I used for this project was around 80 units, though I did have wasted space in this first pass. Be aware that you cannot build on height 255. 254 is the limit (though you can walk on 255).

I believe it's vital to use a tapered edge for the pipes, at the top and especially the bottom:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3366386598

This is because water in this game falls rather slowly. Even a large basin can become lopsided if all the pipes feed from the same water column - this can cause some pipes to have no water.

This game currently has no system for 'drying' water naturally so you will need a way to deal with the ever increasing water your basin will have. A roof set in the basin at a lower level than the basin lip will work as they absorb water:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3366391233

(Note that roof 'edge' pieces don't really absorb or dry water slowly, they completely obliterate any water falling on them instantly. But it must be falling to be obliterated.)

As for taking this system further with an additional waterfall downspout....it seems to struggle with a second waterfall. Despite the water level in the top basin not fully dropping, the first waterfall's power efficiency dropped to about 200 WpH. I think a batter solution for more power in a system like this is just to expand vertically.

Pros:

• Can be placed almost anywhere on map (with enough space)
  
• Power generation is coalesced so fewer teslas are used
  
• No Ratizen investment needed - Set it up and forget it
  
• Materials used for creating waterfall are plentiful/renewable

Cons:

• Water is very finnicky, so exact power generation may be different for each setup
  
• Massive time, space and material investment

My advice...if you just want power just use a few Thermal Gens with Flamone farms to get a far greater result.

Still, this was fun to dream up and create, so it was definitely worth it.

[glass zebra]

Are you sure need 4+ pipelines? This seems to indicate that 3 can be enough if you build the input flow differently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5BeOtybAU0

[Chance]

Originally posted by serikos:

Are you sure need 4+ pipelines? This seems to indicate that 3 can be enough if you build the input flow differently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5BeOtybAU0

Three is all that are needed to maintain it, but power production with water is weird. When I shut off all but three of the pipelines, power production drops. I don't understand why.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Chance:

Originally posted by serikos:

Are you sure need 4+ pipelines? This seems to indicate that 3 can be enough if you build the input flow differently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5BeOtybAU0

Three is all that are needed to maintain it, but power production with water is weird. When I shut off all but three of the pipelines, power production drops. I don't understand why.

I thought that might be due to the input flow. Moving that much water in the first place might also cause some hiccups depending on the machine.

[Chad "The King" ThunderCuck]

yeah i took one look at the hydro electric system and said "nah fam, ill just burn coal." the immense amount of resources wasted on this, makes it completely non viable. not to mention the fact that water does not flow when its not on your screen, so i imagine the generators are just off anytime youre not sitting right there.

cool job, but the insane amount of time and resources it takes just shows that this is one of many pieces of the game that were slapped in without first making sure it actually worked and was viable. sure, you get maintenance free power. but not very much of it. hell, it takes 2 furnaces burning coal 24/7 just to power a factory and lab.

[Chance]

Originally posted by Chad "The King" ThunderCuck:

yeah i took one look at the hydro electric system and said "nah fam, ill just burn coal." the immense amount of resources wasted on this, makes it completely non viable. not to mention the fact that water does not flow when its not on your screen, so i imagine the generators are just off anytime youre not sitting right there.

cool job, but the insane amount of time and resources it takes just shows that this is one of many pieces of the game that were slapped in without first making sure it actually worked and was viable. sure, you get maintenance free power. but not very much of it. hell, it takes 2 furnaces burning coal 24/7 just to power a factory and lab.

I agree it may not seem worth it, but water does indeed flow, even when way off screen. I tested a waterfall going from near the top of the map to the absolute basalt bottom to see what would happen, and nearly flooded my bottom layer. Water not drying out ever on it's own could be seen as an issue, but it def flows off screen. The power system works far off screen as well.

If I used the whole height of the map and double sided the system I made and wasted no space I think I could fit around 10,000 WpH. However, at even close to that large a scale, your city would likely be big enough to start running into other issues of finite resources.

[glass zebra]

Keep in mind that this is new stuff. When water power generators were first added, they were simply a good sources of one-time energy. The water moving blocks were added because players wanted something like that.

If water would not flow while off-screen, the whole rain system and anemones etc. would not work.

[Chad "The King" ThunderCuck]

Originally posted by serikos:

Keep in mind that this is new stuff. When water power generators were first added, they were simply a good sources of one-time energy. The water moving blocks were added because players wanted something like that.

If water would not flow while off-screen, the whole rain system and anemones etc. would not work.

do they though? cause thats what im basing my observation on. unless on screen, anemones dont fill my area with water, and likewise my network of dewctachers dosent fill the resivior i built below my city unless im down there watching it do so. im guessing that whats actually happening above, is that when you leave the waters rendering distance, it just locks it at whatever state it was and runs the calculations as though water was actually flowing through the water wheels still. in fact, ive noticed that once you get about 2 screens away from your town, everything seems to stop. i come back from mining trips that had me down underground for an hour or more, and still have about the same stock of items as when i went down, as though all my rats just go offline when im out of the render distance.