Solar Power plants.. Mostly useless?

[BoogieMan]

They do nothing during the night, fine, makes sense. However, you have to build extra power plants to make up for the loss at night that during the day the solar power plant ends up producing more or less just wasted surplus power with a hefty price tag.

If you end up using other power sources like coal, are they at least smart enough to disable or reduce it's usage during the day while the SPP picks up the slack? Still seems like wasted effort though, I dunno. I haven't played the game enough to really know.

Thoughts?

[simonmd]

We need some kind of storage for solar now we have a day/night cycle for sure. I've not even played the latest patch yet though, does power demand go up and down according to day and night now or is it constant? If demand goes up in the day then maybe solar is just good for topping up other means of power.

[kesat]

First: Nope, it doesn't make sense that they aren't doing anything at night, because real-life solar power plants (like the PS10[en.wikipedia.org]) use thermal storages to generate power at night.

And no, your reserve power plants won't reduce their power output (=resource input) during the day. Solar power plants are pretty useless compared to your other options (even regarding the increased power consumption during day).

[BoogieMan]

What a shame. You'd think they'd at least have batteries or something to store some of what they generate as surplus during the day.

[kesat]

Well, i didn't take a look into it - but you should be able to modify the solar power plant asset to get a (reduced) power output at night. Which should be sufficient enough to make them worthwhile.

[simonmd]

I'm sure it won't be long before someone makes a mod that simulates power storage and release. I think CO should have done it first though.

[Proteus]

They are useful if you make use of the split budget.
Just have enough "normal" powerplants to get you a full power coverage at 100% during the night ... and then buy a few solar powerplants for the day, so that youh can reduce your power budget for daytimes.

Solar PPs still have the best power production per upkeep, so mixing their power into power produced by conventional means still is useful.

They just aren´t the ultimate killer solution for your power problems anymore, which they were before the introduction of the day/night mechanism

[The Old Guard]

Yup, pretty much useless the solar power plants now..!!

[Exiled Prince]

I ran into the same problem in which my whole city survived on the use of solar power plants. When it turned dark, everyone in the city had no more power which led me into -$500,000 in debt.

Luckily, there's an option to keep the game on day mode the whole time.

[Vinier McNuggNugg]

Then dont buy them.
TADA
solved.

[Vinier McNuggNugg]

Originally posted by Vladimir Putin:

I ran into the same problem in which my whole city survived on the use of solar power plants. When it turned dark, everyone in the city had no more power which led me into -$500,000 in debt.

Luckily, there's an option to keep the game on day mode the whole time.

So you went bankrupt? unless they updated it, i thought 10k was the debt limit then game over.

[Exiled Prince]

Originally posted by TheMotherClucker:

Originally posted by Vladimir Putin:

I ran into the same problem in which my whole city survived on the use of solar power plants. When it turned dark, everyone in the city had no more power which led me into -$500,000 in debt.

Luckily, there's an option to keep the game on day mode the whole time.

So you went bankrupt? unless they updated it, i thought 10k was the debt limit then game over.

I'm not sure. I was down to -$500,000 and got back up bysitting back and keeping it at constant day mode. The game kept giving me the option to bailout, but I was like "Nah, I can get my self out of this. Plus I still want to earn achievements."

[simonmd]

Originally posted by TheMotherClucker:

Then dont buy them.
TADA
solved.

Well done for winning Smart a$$ of the day award

Hardly a helpful answer, thats not how solar plants work in real life, they all have some means to store energy otherwise there would be the same problem. Hell, even on the boat I used to own that had solar panels to keep things topped up I had batteries for heavens sake!

[☭ Little King Trashmouth ★]

Originally posted by simonmd:

We need some kind of storage for solar now we have a day/night cycle for sure.

that!

[Greygor]

Originally posted by simonmd:

Originally posted by TheMotherClucker:

Then dont buy them.
TADA
solved.

Well done for winning Smart a$$ of the day award

Hardly a helpful answer, thats not how solar plants work in real life, they all have some means to store energy otherwise there would be the same problem. Hell, even on the boat I used to own that had solar panels to keep things topped up I had batteries for heavens sake!

Not until very recently they didn't. IIRC the first one that could effectively deliver energy to Cities was opened in Spain about 7 years ago.

It uses Salt that it heats and Melts during the day. At night that heat is used to create Steam to tirn a Turbine and produce electricity.

Google for "Commercial concentrating solar thermal power"

[lozacenz]

indeed, a heat capacetor. during the day the heat from the sun is used to produce the steam and melt the salt, during the night the heat from the salt is used to make the steam.
and the default model in Cities Skylines is of a solar plant with this mechanism in place (that's what that big tower in the middle is, as i understand it). so, you know... you'd kind of expect it to behave accordingly.