If a city is powered, should I build power plant?

[afadel97]

If a city is powered, let's say by having harbor & being suzerain of Cardiff or via hydroelectric dam, is it a good idea to build a coal/oil/nuclear plant?

[grognardgary]

I don't think I've ever built a coal plant in any civ ever. Nuclear plants yes Hydro electric yes coal never. Closest would be five where coal is required to build a factory.

[steventirey]

A hydroelectric dam provides power to a single city. The other power plants provide power to all cities with 6 tiles of the industrial center they are build in. On top of that, it provides another citizen slot (for more production), increases the production of other citizens working the plant, and provides Great Engineer points.

Coal also has no other late-game use, so coal plants (despite being the worst in regards to global warming) may be the better option as compared to oil or nuclear plants.

[Exemplar]

the thing about coal/oil/nuclear is that they can power other cities with city center up to 6 tiles away from the power plant (or more with tesla). renewable energy from cardiff bonus, hydroelectric dam, geothermal plants, wind farms etc, do not share power with other cities. also, the district and workshop give engineer gpp, as would factory and power plant. also, coal plant doubles the industrial zone adjacency bonus.

so, the answer is "maybe not", unless, say, you have a couple cities nearby that need power, you want the gpp and potential extra production, and you weigh that against increased pollution (which will add up anyway, but might be an issue in your specific game).

[sauluxville]

Originally posted by afadel97:

If a city is powered, let's say by having harbor & being suzerain of Cardiff or via hydroelectric dam, is it a good idea to build a coal/oil/nuclear plant?

Building a power plant in such a city will still give you their production bonus effects or area effects if applicable.

So if your IZ has a very good adjacency, you could consider building a coal plant there, even more so if you use double adjacency card for IZs. A coal plant could add some noticeable amount of cogs then and it will not use coal and pollute for that particular city. However, if there are cities in the area of effect of that IZ that are not powered otherwise, the coal plant then will use coal to power those cities.

If that IZ has lousy adjacency, but there are some cities in its area of effect, and you have some oil to spare (by some miracle) you could consider an oil plant, to spread a little production around. As long as green power is sufficient for this city, the oil plant will not use oil to power it, but it may use oil to power other cities in its area of effect if those cities are not powered by greener power.

So it depends then, if the production bonus added by those plants will pay themselves off during the remaining time of your game.