Automatic Power down inserters at night

[Milaha]

I imagine this design can be improved greatly in terms of when it powers down/up by incorporating additional elements, but I imagine that we will get a device to do this without hacking around it eventually so I didn't want to put too much time into it. Works well for powering down inserters on factories and labs so that you can save on coal and have free power for laser turrets.

[Shocker]

Wow, that's awesome, good design man! I may have to add that into my map.

[Xinvoker]

This is genius. Not very useful, but genius.

[rk84]

This is genius. Not very useful, but genius.

Start new game with rare/small/poor coal deposit, but plenty of wood?

Hey. How efficient it would be if you used solar during day and steam engines during night with small support plant constanly on to power ignition of main plant?

[Milaha]

Boilers seem to only use as much coal as needed to keep engines going for the power they use (not what they can make). When the solar generators are enough to power everything there is 0 coal used on my steam plant, despite the steam engines being hot and ready to go. At night the steam engines ramp up to only about 1/8 output since everything shuts down and they draw coal at a snail's pace. If creepers attack and the lasers go nuts they instantly ramp up and use coal like mad. So no small power plant needed, just hook this in and produce a ton of solar power and your steam engines will sit idle during the day and only use as much coal as your remaining devices need at night automatically.