Import & export megawatt of energy

[Argelle]

Old story in WRSR, the coal power plant is sometimes not staffed for a short period of time (Jean Michel retirement party ?)
Our Great Comrad Planificator, Argelle the third (Argelle one and two meditate now in Siberia, due to poor 5 years planning) decide to export energy at maximum (most of the time it works) and order the construction of a second high power line to another border for import, but only a bit.

https://tof.cx/image/qw4tOX

Sadely it seems Argelle the third plan failed...

a) import limit is not respected (export 18 MW, import 1.8 MW)
b) import, and import only goes directely to export, overiding our coal power export.

Argelle the fourth would very much get your advice !

[MaroonFrog]

I always separate my export connections from the general grid. I.e. one connection of each power block goes directly to export. The other connection is tied to a 3x3 high voltage switch (2 blocks) which also has a smaller import connection for load balancing.

Only the power from this large switch is distributed across the Republic.

[Argelle]

So it does work ! yippee, thanks MaroonFrog :)
Not sure what you mean by 'power block' ?

Legend:
==== high voltage
------- medium voltage
T transformer
town = general grid

Actual setting:

                                 ¶=====T-------------------------town
                                 ¶                               town
Border <export 18 MW<================ POWER PLANT -------------- town
                                 ¶
 Border >import 1,8 MW>= =========                                    

Will this work?

Border <export 18 MW<================ POWER PLANT ------------ town
                                                                town
                                                                town
Border >import 1,8 MW>= =======T---------------------------------town

the power plant is not conducting power, so there will be three blocks:
1/ export & power plant
2/ power plant & town
3/ import & town

MaroonFrog's setting (as I understand it)

Border <export 18 MW<============POWER PLANT=====SWITCH===========<import 1,8 MW<Border
                                                   ¶
                                                   ¶
                                                   ¶
                                                  town

[Argelle]

When using set up #2 it's indeed functional.

Border <export 2.062 MW<================ POWER PLANT ------------ town
                                  2.4 MW for one worker           town
                                                                  town
Border >import 0.682 MW>= =======T---------------------------------town

There is still a tiny wee bit of current been imported. My guess is that the switch need to be fed by import (and can not get power from main grid because current only go from high to medium voltage not the other way).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2115930574

[David]

I made a cableway for my power plant workers. The cars are exactly evenly spaced. Even though it is run with electricity it has never failed. I love them, so much better than busses.

[Argelle]

So far, never build cable way. Curious about where do you pick up workers with them?
Do you have a cable way station downtown ?!

And before I set up an export & import of energy I did have power shortage... so cable way => no electricity => no worker for power station. Whereas with buses, workers will eventually arrive and start the power plant

[David]

Yes, I have a cableway station at the edge of downtown.

Now that you mention it, I did have problems with power distribution before building the cable system, and you are right that is an issue. In my case I had used undersized power lines; it took me a while to figure out the way to read the power meters, but now it is all good.

It is very hard to build a road etc under a cableway as well.

But a cableway system can supply 12 workers per car, at least 25 cars on a moderate length system, and over 120 workers at a time working at the end. Since the workers arrive steadily everything hums along evenly.

I have 1 cableway system feeding a coal mine, coal processing plant, power plant, and steel mill.

I also have 1 bus still running just in case, for auto-restart.

You can also distribute goods with a cableway system. I’m thinking of having the manufacturing of small goods (like chemicals) done on one side of a mountain range, then the destination on the other side. Seems like a good way to split manufacturing between areas.

Cableway can also distribute aggregate and larger goods, but ive found the capacity isn’t big enough for much material. Great for people though.

[ko3lenok]

Originally posted by Argelle:

Old story in WRSR, the coal power plant is sometimes not staffed for a short period of time

I've made this suggestion here before, but the more I think about it the more I think it could be an elegant solution to this old problem. If only we could have worker queues in important buildings like power plants.. You'd manually set a 'buffer' for workers, very similar to what we currently have in stores, schools, and football fields. If a new bus arrives while the power plant is still fully staffed, some of the workers go into the waiting area and start working as soon as a slot opens up for them. It just makes so much more sense than the current workarounds (however clever), such as spacing workers evenly with cable cars... Pretty please?

[David]

Absolutely, the mechanic already exists and works, just needs to be expanded a bit.