How much power do I need?

[Barry McCockiner]

So I've got a pretty small house with about 10 lights, 3 heaters, a couple coolers, and 6 hydroponic basins. I have 2 solar panels and 3 wind turbines running through 3 batteries, and I'm still losing power most nights and having a hard time keeping the batteries charged. Is there a more efficient way of circulating power or do i just need to produce more? I've got the geyser research queued up, will that help?

[Radiosity]

10 lights = 30 each, so that's 300 (until you research advanced lighting, which drops it to 15 each).
Hydroponics are what, 40 each or something? I don't remember the precise amount, but it's something like that. So 240W.

Heaters and coolers are 200 each, so that's another 1000W.

Batteries store 400W, iirc? (I mostly use mods, so base game figures are a bit vague for me these days, lol). So you're trying to run a base of 1500W on a 1200W battery grid. Add a couple extra batteries and you'll probably be fine and have a little excess.

Geothermal gives you 3200W of steady power, so that will solve the problem all by itself, and let you expand, too.

[MadArtillery]

Just get geothermal and usually those tide me over the whole playthrough without issue. Do be aware you can put solar panels in the wind turbine zones to make denser power infrastructure if you want to use those for anything. Stable power sources are simply better in pretty much every case though.

[Astasia]

If you have biotech just get toxifier generators. It's a cheap research, they are cheap to build, provide a lot of power, don't require batteries, and they don't break down. Just place them so their pollution radius doesn't overlap with your base and you are good to go, it takes like 20 years for them to fill that radius so it's basically just not a concern.

[eMYNOCK]

a pollux tree per tox generator and it absolutely is a non issue... these things thrive on pollution.
they even make waste drops at low tech levels interessting.

exotic trader or settlements sometimes have one or two seeds.

just be wary of these damn beavers if they run into your map.

[tom tomorrow]

Tip for indoor hydro basins - hook the sun lamp directly to your solar panels without batteries so you get a natural day/night cycle. Iirc I think it's two solar panels per sun lamp. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. It's been a while since I've used hydroponics (cannibal colony for life).

As for your actual problem, yeah, you need a couple more batteries.

[eMYNOCK]

one sun lamp nibbles 2900 a day, one solar pruduces 1700.

no correction required.

but you still waste around 600 that could be put into a battery for preserving the harvest afterwards.

[Barry McCockiner]

Originally posted by Radiosity:

10 lights = 30 each, so that's 300 (until you research advanced lighting, which drops it to 15 each).
Hydroponics are what, 40 each or something? I don't remember the precise amount, but it's something like that. So 240W.

Heaters and coolers are 200 each, so that's another 1000W.

Batteries store 400W, iirc? (I mostly use mods, so base game figures are a bit vague for me these days, lol). So you're trying to run a base of 1500W on a 1200W battery grid. Add a couple extra batteries and you'll probably be fine and have a little excess.

Geothermal gives you 3200W of steady power, so that will solve the problem all by itself, and let you expand, too.

Gotcha, I ended up just adding a couple grids to hold me over until I got the geyser upgrade. Thanks!

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Originally posted by mf tom:

Tip for indoor hydro basins - hook the sun lamp directly to your solar panels without batteries so you get a natural day/night cycle. Iirc I think it's two solar panels per sun lamp. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. It's been a while since I've used hydroponics (cannibal colony for life).

As for your actual problem, yeah, you need a couple more batteries.

There is a slight deviation between when it becomes bright enough for two panels to support a sunlamp and when the sunlamp wants to turn on, a battery will provide a slight boost to growth speed as a result by supporting the lamp as soon as daytime begins but isn't yet bright enough for adequate power supply.

[eMYNOCK]

Originally posted by Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia:

Originally posted by mf tom:

Tip for indoor hydro basins - hook the sun lamp directly to your solar panels without batteries so you get a natural day/night cycle. Iirc I think it's two solar panels per sun lamp. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. It's been a while since I've used hydroponics (cannibal colony for life).

As for your actual problem, yeah, you need a couple more batteries.

There is a slight deviation between when it becomes bright enough for two panels to support a sunlamp and when the sunlamp wants to turn on, a battery will provide a slight boost to growth speed as a result by supporting the lamp as soon as daytime begins but isn't yet bright enough for adequate power supply.

the basins draw power 24/7... that allone has to be calculated in.. basin out of power basically means the plants are dead the next morning.

one way to negate this are batteries or... good old mushrooms and cutting out the sun lamp entirely.

with two solars, enough warmth and basisns you can grow more nutrifungus than you might ever need...

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

Originally posted by Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia:

There is a slight deviation between when it becomes bright enough for two panels to support a sunlamp and when the sunlamp wants to turn on, a battery will provide a slight boost to growth speed as a result by supporting the lamp as soon as daytime begins but isn't yet bright enough for adequate power supply.

the basins draw power 24/7... that allone has to be calculated in.. basin out of power basically means the plants are dead the next morning.

one way to negate this are batteries or... good old mushrooms and cutting out the sun lamp entirely.

with two solars, enough warmth and basisns you can grow more nutrifungus than you might ever need...

You can hook up the sunlamp to a different grid from the basins, or not use basins at all if the soil is good enough which will usually be the case with nutrifungus outside of sea ice.

[VoiD]

All of the power!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3240432977
tbh it's probably not the most efficient layout, haven't seen what people are building nowadays and anomaly was very new at the time, but building this was fun.

You can also use the excess bioferrite from the bulbs to feed a bioferrite generator.

That is, if you're playing with anomaly.

Back to your question, don't forget that that batteries don't recharge at full speed.
https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Battery
"Batteries automatically charge and discharge when connected to other buildings. Each battery can store 600 Wd (Watt-days) of power at once. 1 Watt-day is equal to powering a 1 W appliance for 24 hours. However, batteries have a 50% efficiency, meaning they take in only half of a grid's excess power. For example, an excess of 200 W for 24 hours will only store 100 Wd. Power is evenly divided between all connected batteries. There is no limit or penalty for power output."

So if you want to use green energy you'll probably need a lot more energy.

[Dizzy Ioeuy]

I honestly can't even remember the last time any of my colonies even HAD electricity! Heh.. Tribal addict here.

[apud.harald]

Your production of solar power should be tied to daytime utilisation.
Growing lamps come to mind. They switch off at night.
Presumably you have work shops that only operate at certain hours - same story.

Once you understand what power level is used when, getting a working electricity net without any batteries is eminently doable.

You can set up hothouses out in the open that grow food all year long. They need lighting by day and heating for the winter. Separating the electricity network into day and night sections is illogical - your hothouses will need both at variable levels.