Sunshine

[Emelio Lizardo]

What is the optimal solar panel to accumulator ratio?

[malogoss]

wiki.factorio.com/Power_production

[bluemonkey]

(also consider extra energy storage for your laser turrets)

[Emaulligu]

Dunno about optimal, that's very vague as your factory is bound to grow and evolve either way, what I do is count them as "blocks" of either panels or accumulators around a single substation, then look at the state of the system.
If at nightfall the accumulators aren't full it means I need more panels to recharge faster, at sunrise if the accumulators are critically low, I need more accumulators to increase storage.

[RiO]

Emelio Lizardo の投稿を引用：

What is the optimal solar panel to accumulator ratio?

Depends on the yield of the panel, the storage capacity of the accumultor, and the length of the day-night cycle.

For standard settings on unmodded Factorio it is iirc 0.84 accumulators per solar panel.
For mods like Space Exploration you need the more complete formula for the ratio R, which can be given as:

R =
    0.168
  * (SurfaceSolarEfficiency / 100)
  * (MaxPanelOutput kW / AccumulatorCapacity kJ)
  * CycleDuration s

(Here 0.168 is a kind of magic number constant that roughly approximates the more complex math and number crunching you'd actually need to get it 100% totally correct, which would iirc involve computing integrals. "Ain't nobody got time for that," so don't think too hard about it.)

[Chindraba]

The math is all nice, and I've no objection to using it - when designing a solar grid or something permanent in my blueprint library. Once the factory is growing, however, the "is it working?" method is much easier to implement, and keep updated. Perfect example of that is just above.

Emaulligu の投稿を引用：

Dunno about optimal, that's very vague as your factory is bound to grow and evolve either way, what I do is count them as "blocks" of either panels or accumulators around a single substation, then look at the state of the system.
If at nightfall the accumulators aren't full it means I need more panels to recharge faster, at sunrise if the accumulators are critically low, I need more accumulators to increase storage.

[shadain597]

I mean, the Wiki says 21 accumulators for 25 panels, and IMO as long as you are in that ballpark it should be good enough for vanilla. Don't have enough power, or the accumulators are getting low by the end of the night? Solution: slap down more blueprints of that same setup.

If you are playing with mods that change anything relevant (panels, accumulators, solar efficiency, day/night cycle, etc.) there's a mod to help with quickly finding the "right" ratio. IIRC it's called Solar Rate Calculator. Especially useful for Space Exploration, but lots of mods either change the stats on solar power or mess with day/night.

[RiO]

Chindraba の投稿を引用：

The math is all nice, and I've no objection to using it - when designing a solar grid or something permanent in my blueprint library. Once the factory is growing, however, the "is it working?" method is much easier to implement, and keep updated. Perfect example of that is just above.

Disagree. Whether it's easier to implement or not is highly dependent on how you build your factory.

E.g. If you've decided on building based on city blocks which can be regularly tiled, then having a pre-established blueprint at optimal ratio that you can just plonk down ad-nauseum and have bots do the work for building it while you go and do something else that's actually engaging, is far easier to implement than the alternative of hand-erecting all of it and continuously having to stop and check: "are we there yet?"

[Chindraba]

RiO の投稿を引用：

Chindraba の投稿を引用：

The math is all nice, and I've no objection to using it - when designing a solar grid or something permanent in my blueprint library. Once the factory is growing, however, the "is it working?" method is much easier to implement, and keep updated. Perfect example of that is just above.

Disagree. Whether it's easier to implement or not is highly dependent on how you build your factory.

E.g. If you've decided on building based on city blocks which can be regularly tiled, then having a pre-established blueprint at optimal ratio that you can just plonk down ad-nauseum and have bots do the work for building it while you go and do something else that's actually engaging, is far easier to implement than the alternative of hand-erecting all of it and continuously having to stop and check: "are we there yet?"

"... or something permanent in my blueprint library"

A "a pre-established blueprint" probably is something permanent in my blueprint library.

[RiO]

Chindraba の投稿を引用：

RiO の投稿を引用：

Disagree. Whether it's easier to implement or not is highly dependent on how you build your factory.

E.g. If you've decided on building based on city blocks which can be regularly tiled, then having a pre-established blueprint at optimal ratio that you can just plonk down ad-nauseum and have bots do the work for building it while you go and do something else that's actually engaging, is far easier to implement than the alternative of hand-erecting all of it and continuously having to stop and check: "are we there yet?"

"... or something permanent in my blueprint library"

A "a pre-established blueprint" probably is something permanent in my blueprint library.

Ok, if you consider that a thing in your permanent blueprint lib. But note that especially for mods like SE, you wouldn't - considering the variable ratio from planet to planet.

Might be true for vanilla though, assuming if you build in city blocks you'll always build in the same size of block.

[Seth_Haveron]

shadain597 の投稿を引用：

I mean, the Wiki says 21 accumulators for 25 panels,

thats inaccurate

there should be enough Panels to keep the system up without the accus + loading reserve
since loading the accumulators puts a additional strain on the system

50 - 20 ratio is more likely since 20-20 with system load will not charge the accus

[Hurkyl]

Seth_Haveron の投稿を引用：

shadain597 の投稿を引用：

I mean, the Wiki says 21 accumulators for 25 panels,

thats inaccurate

there should be enough Panels to keep the system up without the accus + loading reserve
since loading the accumulators puts a additional strain on the system

50 - 20 ratio is more likely since 20-20 with system load will not charge the accus

I'm pretty sure that is already accounted for.

25 solar panels will produce a particular amount of energy over a single day-night cycle.

21 accumulators is how many you need to buffer the energy so that it can be used at a constant rate throughout the cycle.

If your actual average load is such that that you need around 50 solar panels to produce the energy... you won't have a large enough buffer if you only have 20 accumulators: you'll run out of power around half way through the night. You need 42 accumulators to get enough of a buffer.

[MechBFP]

Seth_Haveron の投稿を引用：

shadain597 の投稿を引用：

I mean, the Wiki says 21 accumulators for 25 panels,

thats inaccurate

there should be enough Panels to keep the system up without the accus + loading reserve
since loading the accumulators puts a additional strain on the system

50 - 20 ratio is more likely since 20-20 with system load will not charge the accus

Prey tell how you keep the system up without accumulators at night time?

[Vyndicu]

Seth_Haveron の投稿を引用：

shadain597 の投稿を引用：

I mean, the Wiki says 21 accumulators for 25 panels,

thats inaccurate

there should be enough Panels to keep the system up without the accus + loading reserve
since loading the accumulators puts a additional strain on the system

50 - 20 ratio is more likely since 20-20 with system load will not charge the accus

It is indeed like what the other people are saying.

A single accumulator stores a fixed amount of energy for a night cycle- approximately 20 or 21 accumulators for a single MW of power. The last time I checked, this had not changed for Vanilla Factorio.

It is not difficult to Google the math/reason behind the perfect ratio of solar panels to accumulators and the number of accumulators per sustainable energy one MW for a night.


Doubling the number of solar panels will generate more power during the day, no doubt about it.

Still, relying on accumulators as the only energy source at night will be the primary limiting factor for an efficient running factory.

[Chindraba]

If everything is perfect in the ratios for solar panels and accumulators, and if there aren't any mods changing something that matters for the process, solar power can be figured as 42kW/solar panel for the full cycle of light and dark.

Now, if we could just get all the running factory to be in multiples of 42kW it would be easy to set it up every time.

[desertpunk3912]

The perfect ratio is 69 to 420, AKA 21 accumulators to 25 solar panels. For the standard game day.