HOWTO - calculate solar grid requirements

[Tom]

Here's a quick-and-dirty way to figure out how many solar panels and batteries you need. I'm not going to be talking about how you do the wiring; other people on the group have discussed that. This is just to answer these questions: how many solar arrays and how many batteries?

First, you need to find out how much power your base needs right now. To find this out, find an outlet on the outside of one of your buildings, temporarily craft a battery nearby (magnetized ferrite and condensed carbon), and wire it to the outlet. Interact with the battery (E key), and the power grid display on the right will show you how much power is being asked for, in a unit called kPs. That's kP's per second. Let's say it's 220. How many solar arrays will provide that at 50 kPs per array? Answer: you'd need five solar arrays (250 kPs) to power the connected buildings during the daylight.

If you need that much during the day, you're going to need the same amount at night when the sun is not shining, so you'll have to put it into your batteries during the daytime while the solar arrays are generating power. So double the number of solar arrays; think of it as five arrays powering the base when the sun shines, and the other five charging up the batteries to power it when it's dark. Now you're at ten solar arrays. How many batteries?

One battery stores all the power that one solar array generates during the day. That battery can provide that same amount to your base during the entire night. So for the five solar array outputs that will be going into the batteries, you'll also need five batteries.

Try it with a different power requirement:

Let's say 375 kPs required to run the whole base.
375 / 50 = 7 1/2 solar arrays; round it up to 8 solar arrays.
Double it to 16 solar arrays, to be able to charge batteries at the same time.
Since we need half that number of batteries, we'll need 8 batteries.
So, total: 16 solar arrays, 8 batteries

That's pretty close to the minimum, and handles just your current power requirements; you should plan for some excess capacity, depending on what you plan to build in the future. Even if you don't plan to do any more building I'd add 10%-25% capacity so that you're not running right at the limit. So for our 375 kPs example I'd add maybe two solar arrays and one more battery.

Then for future requirements if you max out, for each 50 kPs of additional load on the grid, add two solar arrays and one battery.

BTW, if you happen to be able to find an electromagnetic hot spot near your base (you'd need to install a Survey Device for your multitool's Analysis Visor), each electromagnetic generator is the equivalent of three solar arrays, and they run day and night. So for our 375 kPs example, three generators wired together and then wired to one of your buildings takes care of the whole situation.

[EDIT, 08/21/2019] I was wrong to claim earlier that you could build the generators at any distance from your base. It just so happened that the two electromagnetic hot spots I based my research on were within 300U of the base. That seems to be the limit, but others on the group have found ways to reach beyond that point. I haven't tested any of those techniques, but I did try to just drop a generator at the boundary and then move past it to chain another one farther out, with no success. Look elsewhere on the group for how to reach more distant hot spots.

[Captain.Jartyk]

If one have and can use the bigger electric generator, it gives 150kp, and it gives power both day and night.
Only you need the new scanner addon, and find a electric hotspot.

I found a electric hotspot 100au from my base in the nearby ocean, placed generators under water, and have a powerline back to base, worked nice.

[Captain.Jartyk]

Checked out the solararrays, You need more arrays, They give full power (50kp) only half the day, on morning and evening, half (25kp).

Add 50% more arrays,
so ex1 above, 5+5 arrays, change to 5+5+5 (15) arrays, and 5 batts
ex2, 8+8+8 (24) arrays, and 8 batts.

a tip on saving power, put switches and proximity sensors on things that dont need power all time.
ex. I put a prox sensor in my storage vault room, and saved near 100kp.

[[LoXG] Riffix]

"They can be built wherever the hot spot is found, not necessarily within your base's building limit."

That's only partially true. They vanish from your build menu if you are too far out of the perimeter of your base's building limit just like most things. I got lucky in that there was one close enough to my existing base that if I stood just inside the build perimeter, I could position it on the hotspot. But not everyone will be this lucky. Given the utility of having it run constantly though, I think the best advice for anyone thinking of setting up a pretty sizable base would be to invest in the Scanning Device and the EM Generator, find a hotspot, and build your base fairly close to it.

[Tom]

@Captain.Jartyk, while it's true that the solar array output drops right around dawn and dusk for a short time, it's compensated for by the fact that they produce power at low level for a period of time at both ends of the dark period. So you get an effective 50 kPs for the full fifteen minutes of daylight.

I ran a test of this just now. In the morning, the 25 kPs power starts flowing around 50 seconds before daylight, and stays at 25 kPs for about 32 seconds afterwards. In the evening the same effect happens: output drops to 25 kPs for the 32 seconds before darkness, and continues at that level for 50 seconds afterwards. So those periods of output during darkness at both ends of the night make up for the lower output at both ends of the daylight period, plus just a little extra.

So my calculations stand, as I presented them.

However there's no question that you should have some extra capacity in the system. I don't think one would want to run the grid right at exact capacity. In particular, one thing I haven't had an opportunity to test yet is whether solar output drops during storms. I'm still waiting for that to happen when I'm monitoring the grid. LATER: I waited through two day/night cycles waiting for a storm, but the only ones I got were at night. I'll have to do that test on a different planet. EVEN LATER: storms don't seem to affect solar output.

On my claim that you can build electromagnetic generators outside your base's building limit, I had switched my game to creative mode for my testing to make it easier to construct things and had no problem building generators more than 300U away from the base. It may be that in creative mode you just don't have that limitation.

[His name is Robert Paulson]

Originally posted by Captain.Jartyk:

If one have and can use the bigger electric generator, it gives 150kp, and it gives power both day and night.
Only you need the new scanner addon, and find a electric hotspot.

I found a electric hotspot 100au from my base in the nearby ocean, placed generators under water, and have a powerline back to base, worked nice.

The problem is that they're useless for mining bases. This is what most of your bases are going to end up being, so you're gonna have to build ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of solar/batteries.

[artsensi]

Man, this is such a helpful discussion - thanks to everyone.

[Balgore]

link on the wiring tutorial?

[grogez]

Have found with em generators centred on:

c class hotspot -> 150kPs
b class hotspot -> 220kPs
a class hotspot -> ??
s class hotspot -> 300kPs

[artsensi]

On my first base with Beyond i got a mining and a power hot spot close together to be usable, not seen that setup since - it is a very nice planet, perhaps just luck or the nicer planets have more sites.

[tattmann]

Currently my electromagnetic generators are coming out as an s class biomass generator when placed. Interesting.....

[artsensi]

I put some batteries down and they turned into biomass generators, replaced them and been ok so far. Strange.

[Balgore]

Found a b class location on a new planet, built a whole new base from scratch.

Using 3 electromagnetic generators I am powering three large spherical buildings, a portal, a trade terminal, multiple doors and lights, all 10 storage units. And I have actually only used 1 out of 3 of the generators. It seems electromagnetic is the best way to go if you are willing to build a new base. Never need to attend it, add more, or insert fuel or worry about night time power.

[jason.goemaat]

I like it, it's super simple and there is some built-in wiggle-room, but you can get by with 1/2 the batteries. If you use every ounce of power the solar panels produce you can get an extra 25kps but you'd need an extra 1/3 battery.

To keep it simple and not count your equipment you can just make sure you have double the power required during full sunlight. And for every 100 kps you need a battery (actually 107 but 100 is nice and round). Or you can take your power requirements * 540 (the seconds in a night) to get the kP you need to have stored when the sun sets. Each battery is 45000 kP or you can take the current storage / the percent (i.e. 0.8 for 80%) to get a rough number if you don't want to count batteries.

Notes:

* there are 1800 seconds in a game day
* Bio-Dome (50kps) uses exactly 90,000 kp per game day
* 4 hours of dawn (1/2 power), 9 hours of full sun, 4 hours of dusk (1/2 power), 7 hours of dark
* that equals 13 hours of power per day, 26 hours for two solar panels, a 1/12th power surplus
* 2 solar panels produce 97,550 kp a day, 7500 is the 1/12th from the extra sunlight and 50 is an extra second they give you
* batteries can discharge fast, one battery can provide full power but not for long
* 45,000 kP in a battery is enough for 15 hours of 50kps in darkness, or 107.14 kps over the 7 hours of darkness each day

So the solar panels produce an extra 1/12 power, so 12 solar panels will give you an average of 325 kps over 24 hours. That's how much raw power they're receiving. If you want to use it ALL, you'll need a little extra storage to cover the shortfall when they're running at 1/2 power during the 8 hours of dawn and dusk.

Number-wise you'll get 9 hours of 275 over-production during the day (9*275*60). That'll be just enough to cover the 8 hours of underproduction during dawn/dusk (8*25*60) and 7 hours of total darkness (7*325*60). When dusk hits, you'll need enough stored power to cover all that which turns out to be 160,500 kP. 3 batteries only gives you 135,000 kP so you'll need the 4th and have an extra 20k capacity.

This is perfect for a nice clean modular setup. The large square room has 8 positions where you can snap a battery or solar panel exactly. Put down 6 solar panels and 2 batteries. That'll produce just over 162.5 average energy, and use 12 for the structure and two holo doors, so an extra 150 average energy is produced.

I made two of those modules at night and hooked up 6 bio-domes to draw an extra 300kps for a total of 325kps. In the early morning the solar panels deployed but nothing powered up because they were only providing 300kps. At 07:30 everything powered on and the batteries started charging at 275 kps. At 16:30 when they went to half power the storage was at about 183,000 kP (80%) and it started slowly draining to make up the 25kps shortfall. The next morning at 7:30 am the storage got down to 300 kP when the solar panels got back to full power and started charging the batteries again. I was looking at the numbers changing quickly, but that sure looks like 6 times the extra 50 per 2 solar panels I found earlier The game must give you one extra second of dawn or dusk each day as a tiny buffer.

[soopytwist]

If I connect a battery to an outlet on my base it doesn't say anything when I press E. Apart from just ZERO everything.