Power Stations

[LookToWindward]

Hi,

I had one Power Station and all was well, I started to run short of power so I build another, now I get am Electrical Imbalance of -327 MW?

How do Power Station work and how can I fix the problem?

Thanks a lot

[LookToWindward]

I've been playing around trying to get electricity to work with 2 power stations but no luck. I really don't understand why this is so difficult, surely if I build another power plant to should just work, it does it every other game like this I've played!

[TargetLost]

They need Coal to burn and some employees.

p.s. Also you have to check their range you have to place transformers to expand the range if you have a large city

[LookToWindward]

Yes. both have coal and all employment slot are filled and I have substations where needed. When I click a power station, it says "Network Balance -575 MW" i red, see 2 screenshots here:

https://prnt.sc/eEBSLr0P27bV

https://prnt.sc/svBNHScRyPqY

All my building have the No Electricity icon showing

[LookToWindward]

It seems that a negative "Network Balance" means you don't have enough power stations for the demand. Seems like a silly message to me! Why not just "not enough power stations"?

[TargetLost]

Hmm it looks normal which means you have a very larger power consumption/sink somewhere.

I think there is something in the game that gives you an overview of the produced and consumed electricity.

Edit: Economie tab (the one with the money icon) last on the left says electricity if you click on that and then on the right click on network #1 you should see the list of all productions and consumation

If you have Tropocoins as example they have netusage of -250M up to -350M

[LookToWindward]

Thanks I will take a look

[joeball123]

Originally posted by LookToWindward:

It seems that a negative "Network Balance" means you don't have enough power stations for the demand. Seems like a silly message to me! Why not just "not enough power stations"?

Presumably because building additional power plants is not the only way to resolve a power shortage, or even the only way to increase overall power production.
- Power output at all power plants is directly proportional to the plant's "efficiency," which is mostly controlled by the budget setting; increasing the budget will therefore allow you to increase power output without building additional power plants.
- Some power plants, though not the one that you're using, have upgrades or alternate work modes that increase their power output.
- Some buildings, for example the Modern Apartment, have upgrades that reduce power consumption; some other buildings, for example the Automated Mine, have power requirements that change depending on work mode.
- The various types of power plant all have different power outputs, and so it may be possible to resolve a power shortage by replacing an existing power plant with a different plant that has higher output instead of simply adding a new power plant to the grid.
- You might not be able to remove an upgrade from a building, but you can knock the upgraded building down and replace it with an unupgraded copy, or with something else that consumes less power. You don't even have to replace what you knock down with anything if you don't want or cannot afford to do so, though that can lead to problems down the road.
- You can sometimes reduce power consumption by removing superfluous buildings, for example a substation which became unnecessary after the construction of a new power plant or an electrified mine that has exhausted its resource deposit.
- Power issues resulting from a lack of fuel or staff will not necessarily be resolved by the construction of additional power plants; in fact, building additional power plants in such a situation could potentially exacerbate the issue, at least in the short term.

[LookToWindward]

Ok, perhaps "Demand exceeds current supply" would be better then, but "Network Balance" doesn't really tell me what the problem is, at first I thought it meant that I had Power Stations too close to each other. I mean if you have a power out and called the electric company and they said there was a "Negative Network Balance" I don't think most people would understand what they meant!

[TargetLost]

Originally posted by LookToWindward:

Ok, perhaps "Demand exceeds current supply" would be better then, but "Network Balance" doesn't really tell me what the problem is, !

From a technical point of view it is pretty clear. A negative sign in a Balance means exactly what you say: Demand larger than supply or ourput of a system is larger than it's input or your spending is larger than your income.
You should avoid a negtaive sign in a balance sheet :)

[LookToWindward]

Well, I know that now, but I didn't at he time, whereas "Demand exceeds current supply" would be clearer than clear!