How to find the total power needed?

[DRY411S]

My very first post on these forums. Quite intimidating to see if what I'm thinking is already askedd. So forgive me if it's already there and my search isn't good enough.

Is it easy to find out the total power DEMANDED by all your 'stuff'? It seems I can see the total amount produced, and the amount being consumed, but not the amount demanded.

On this screen, do I deduce that the total amount actually required is about 5 times what I am producing, because the red Consumption bar is about 20% full?

AmountDemanded.PNG (72.58 KiB) Viewed 11994 times

[orzelek]

Your thinking is correct - you need about 5x more power.

Way of displaying power consumption have been discussed few times already as a bit confusing.

[DRY411S]

Thank you for the speedy reply, and for confirming that there is not a way of finding out.

The screenshot above was when all my water boilers had run out of coal. What I am normally seeing is this...

fluctuating.PNG (75.35 KiB) Viewed 11972 times

In this one the Consumption bar is always full with the the number to the right of the bar varying, and the Production Bar varies, with the number the same as the Consumption number.

What is this telling me? Is it that the capability of my power generation system is able to meet the Consumption demand, with extra MW available if I need them?

If I'm correct in my understanding, again this doesn't tell me the maximum power I need because the Consumption bar varies as various 'stuff' switches on and off?

[orzelek]

Consumption is varying and it will always vary due to all stuff in factory working and not consuming energy constantly.
Here production bar length is important. It's at around half which means that you have production capability for another 4MW or so.

Finding out max consumption might be difficult because for example inserters only use power when they move. And I'm not sure if they always use the max listed power even then.

[DRY411S]

Thanks once again.

It would be nice to KNOW that I'm only using half my capability. I have clearly built too much power production, increasing pollution and thus the possibility of being attacked.

I'm trying to build only the power I need, when I need it. Your replies have helped me understand thank you.

Finally, one last question. In this screenshot, if I add the kW Consumption together it's less than 4.0MW being reported at the top. It's 3897.3kW (rounded up to 3.9MW). Given that there is a 'space' in the Consumption table for another item to be reported and that it will in any case be <7.0kW, because everything is listed in order of Consumption, where has the other 100kW gone?

doesntaddup.PNG (233.15 KiB) Viewed 11958 times

[orzelek]

Hmm as for why it doesn't add up - I have no idea.

As for the pollution and producing to much power - it's not a problem. Steam engines will only produce as much power as needed and use proportional amount of energy from water. So you have capacity to produce more but only required amount of energy is used.

[daniel34]

Finally, one last question. In this screenshot, if I add the kW Consumption together it's less than 4.0MW being reported at the top. It's 3897.3kW (rounded up to 3.9MW). Given that there is a 'space' in the Consumption table for another item to be reported and that it will in any case be <7.0kW, because everything is listed in order of Consumption, where has the other 100kW gone?

The energy consumption on the top is the consumption right now, 4.0 MW.
But the consumption you get when adding the consumption of all the devices listed is the average consumption of these devices in the last 5 seconds.

Imagine you had laser turrets powered on only for the last one second right at that moment, requiring 5 MW. The consumption bar on the top would show 9 MW (4MW already + 5MW for the turrets) but the laser turrets in the detailed view would only show 1 MW (the average power used by the laser turrets in the last 5 seconds).

TL;DR you are comparing different time frames, 1 tick (1/60 second) for the top bar vs. 300 ticks (5 seconds) for the detailed per-entity values.

[DRY411S]

The energy consumption on the top is the consumption right now, 4.0 MW.
But the consumption you get when adding the consumption of all the devices listed is the average consumption of these devices in the last 5 seconds.

Imagine you had laser turrets powered on only for the last one second right at that moment, requiring 5 MW. The consumption bar on the top would show 9 MW (4MW already + 5MW for the turrets) but the laser turrets in the detailed view would only show 1 MW (the average power used by the laser turrets in the last 5 seconds).

TL;DR you are comparing different time frames, 1 tick (1/60 second) for the top bar vs. 300 ticks (5 seconds) for the detailed per-entity values.

Very clear thank you.

[DRY411S]

Hmm as for why it doesn't add up - I have no idea.

Explained by daniel34, there being a different time window between the instantaneous data at the top and the 5s breakdown below.

As for the pollution and producing to much power - it's not a problem. Steam engines will only produce as much power as needed and use proportional amount of energy from water. So you have capacity to produce more but only required amount of energy is used.

Now I would have thought that the pollution is produced by the boilers, not the steam engines. Aren't they heating up the water whether or not the steam engines use it?

And to go back to the first two screenshots. The first suggested that I needed 12.5MW, the second says that 4.2MW is more than I enough.

[daniel34]

And to go back to the first two screenshots. The first suggested that I needed 12.5MW, the second says that 4.2MW is more than I enough.

The first screenshot does indeed tell you that you need more power (notice the red progress bar) but in the second one you are fine.
Also note that in the first screenshot the accumulators are empty, whereas in the second screenshot they are full.

I think that the consumption bar in the first screenshot actually includes the power demand of the accumulators, but excluding/including that is part of other discussion(s):
Power supply/demand/storage chart in power panel
Accumulator charge graph

[DRY411S]

OK thank you. Sorry if I've covered old ground, as a complete newbie to the game (which I am LOVING), but it's been helpful.

[orzelek]

As for steam and boilers - yes boilers are heating up water but they won't heat up more then needed by steam engines. Sp they only pollute as much as needed currently.