Oil refinery doesn't have own high voltage power connection??

[Министъръ]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but oil refinery consumes around 12MW of power at peak production, but it doesn't have a high power connection? So do I need to power it with 12 MW medium voltage stations at full power with 5-6 substations. That kind of doesn't make sense now does it. The steel plant consumes 11 MW at max power but it has its own high power connection?! Something for the developers or modders to add I think.

[Bufnitza]

An Oil Refinery at full throttle consumes 12MWh. Notice the "h" at the end. However, that is only for production. The refinery (and many other buildings) have auxiliary consumption related with pumping input/output materials or loading/unloading of materials, especially if it has a train connection (e.g. Steel Mill) and many more things. You can follow the power indicator and notice it spikes up when materials are loaded and unloaded. In the construction tooltip you can see the maximum total power consumption. For the refinary, this is 36MWh (again, notice the h). This means that the refinery has a max instant consumption of 0.60MW (36 / 60), hence not requiring a high-voltage power line.

PS: The reason you're dividing it by 60 is because a "day" in-game is 60 real-life seconds on normal speed.

[Bufnitza]

Now, on your comparison, the question is valid. Why does a Steel Mill, which has a lower overall consumption than an Oil Refinery have a high-voltage power line, and the Refinery doesn't?

Good question. I have no idea. But it's definitely not required :)

Later addition: Oh, I might have an idea! The Steel Mill has 3 (three!) rail lines. If you exclusively run electric trains, that high-voltage power line might be an awesome entry point for supporting your rails.

Later-later addition: I just tested it and the Steel Mill does not act as a railroad electric connection, therefore, the high-voltage power line remains a mystery. It might be just for "immersive" reasons, as it could require a higher voltage but lower current, hence the low power consumption. I am not familiar with steel mill requirements IRL.

[Archon]

In real world oil refineries use crazy amounts of electricity. Steel mill might get arc furnace update that would reduce coal use and increase electricity consumption.

Both should have high voltage connections. Also some other industry should have direct medium voltage connection.