0.15 Boiler throttle/shutdown with Introduction of Solar Power?

[rightfn]

I "completed" games of Factorio 1-2 years ago and now that 0.15 has been available for some time, I decided to try out some of the new stuff.

Currently I use 2 boilers and 4 steam engines (eventually figured out by reading forums that the 6-8 engines I was using provided no additional benefit!)

I researched Solar Power and built a bunch of panels. One reason I did this is that in older versions, you could drop down some panels and, even if they couldn't power your base 100%, it would still make a difference in resource consumption, because your steam engines wouldn't work as hard, causing your boilers to throttle back during the day.

I didn't quite see that happening here. I decided to make enough solar panels to generate 75%-100% of needed electricity during the day. As far as I can tell, neither of my boilers ever shut down. Maybe I'm mistaken but they both seem to be eating coal as usual during peak solar production.

The boilers don't ever stop, or throttle fuel consumption, unless I manually disconnect the fuel feed or the boiler steam pipe. They appear to be running at 100% all day and night (generating 100% pollution) regardless of the fact that the solar panels can now generate more power than the steam engines during the day, and that's more than enough to run the entire base.

This makes me feel like the solar panels are 'useless' - or I should say, providing zero benefit - in my current implementation of them. Am I doing anything wrong? In the 'old' game, even a small amount of panels had an impact on total boiler fuel consumption.

Thanks everyone for your help!

[Warlord]

Hmm, solar should still have top priority in power production. It'd help to see a screenshot of your power grid (click a power pole) during the day, so we can see how much of your grid is powered by solar and how much by coal.

A possibility is that you may have, somehow, accidentally separated the solar and steam setups, such that the boilers ran full time because they were the only source? Again, without seeing it for myself, all I can do is speculate.

Verify that your power network is all connected. Check a power pole near the steam engines, and then near the solar. If they do not significantly change in power made or devices attached, then you are connected properly.

Lastly, if you do disconnect your boilers during the day, make sure that you aren't now in a brownout situation.

Are there any accumulators in this network?

[The Chaotic Coder]

Get some accumulators if you don't have them already, and do this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEOXGBYR6oM

(it's from an older version, but still works fine). This will run your base on 100% solar and automatically switch to steam only if it's absolutely needed.

[rightfn]

Video is super cool and I'm glad you posted it! Interestingly enough, in the video, the steam engine does not shut down even though the accumulator is full.

In the version that I played 1-2 years ago, I'm quite sure that the steam engine would have throttled down in this situation, which in turn would have caused the boilers to shut off when output water temperature stayed at 100 since no hot water was being consumed.

It's not 100% definitive but I'm leaning toward thinking that something has changed in the last 1-2 years with regard to how this mechanic works. That's OK - I'm glad to see that the solar panels themselves seem to be much more powerful than the version I remember playing with....!

Will see about getting that screenshot the next time I am playing. I know that it did show my solar panels and steam engines on the same circuit (during the day, solar production exceeds steam engine production and the order on the GUI is switched!)

[Warlord]

EDIT: Irrelevant question, now that I realize you didn't say you had set up and used the SR-latch yet... The question shall remain to show my shame though:

Are you using coal-fired inserters to fuel the boilers? If you use anything else (yellow, blue, etc) then they still draw a tiny bit of power even when idle. The steam engines will animate and appear to be running full out, but the boilers won't really be using any fuel in that case. If you have any machine on the side of the steam engines that draw power when idle (inserters, assemblers, miners, etc) then there is still technically a power drain and steam will provide that power over accumulators.

[AlexMBrennan]

I think that you are missing something big - the fact that you have researched solar technology when you only have 2 boilers suggests that your entire base has been underpowered for a long time.

during the day, solar production exceeds steam engine production and the order on the GUI is switched!)

That suggests that you have half the solar you need (if you had enough solar power then the steam engines wouldn't show at all during the day).

Are you using coal-fired inserters to fuel the boilers? If you use anything else (yellow, blue, etc) then they still draw a tiny bit of power even when idle

Which has no effect whatsoever if the steam engines and solar are part of the same grid.

[Warlord]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Are you using coal-fired inserters to fuel the boilers? If you use anything else (yellow, blue, etc) then they still draw a tiny bit of power even when idle

Which has no effect whatsoever if the steam engines and solar are part of the same grid.

It was a question in response to the OP. I THOUGHT he said he had tried the video (the SR-latch) and that the boilers were still running. I see now he hadn't actually said he tried it recently, and was just stating that he thought it wouldn't work.