Solar ratios

Don't know how to use a machine? Looking for efficient setups? Stuck in a mission?
Post Reply
roothorick
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 92
Joined: Mon Aug 11, 2014 5:22 am
Contact:

Solar ratios

Post by roothorick »

Based purely on numbers on the wiki, I mathed out some ratios:

First of all, the morning ramp-up and evening ramp-down is linear, so they can be safely approximated as half all-on and half all-off (83.33... / 2 = 41.66...). Therefore you have 208.33... + 41.66... * 2 = 250 "seconds", or 291.66... / 416.66... = 70% of a cycle, of daylight, and 416.66... - 291.66... = 125 "seconds", or 125 / 416.66... = 30% of a cycle, of night.

Solar panels are pretty straightforward; 60kW * 70% = 42kW. Since accumulators are currently lossless, we can simply subtract a further 30% from this for charging accumulators: 36kW * 30% = 10.8kW, 36kW - 10.8kW = 25.2kW.

As for accumulators, 5MJ or 5,000kJ is to 5,000 / 125 = 40kW for the entire course of one "night".

Therefore, the ratio is 40/42 = 0.952......, * 21 (I guess-and-checked this one) = 20, so 20:21 accumulators to solar panels, per 21 * 42kW = 882kW of (mean) average draw.

Remember that a key advantage of accumulators is that they can deliver an instantaneous surge of up to 300kW each, seven and a half times times what they can deliver continuously over the course of one night. This means you can safely completely ignore consumption peaks of up to seven and a half times your (mean) average (when does that EVER happen? Laser turrets maybe), and use your (mean) average draw alone to scale your power plants. Now if only the game showed average production and consumption totals in the electrical grid summary screen...

Of course, this is still theoretical; I haven't tested it just yet.

-E- I made two major goofs, one of which changes literally every other computed number. *SHOULD* be right now.
Last edited by roothorick on Sat Aug 16, 2014 3:03 am, edited 1 time in total.


roothorick
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 92
Joined: Mon Aug 11, 2014 5:22 am
Contact:

Re: Solar ratios

Post by roothorick »

I don't like his math (what is his P unit? It's not kilojoules) but looking at it made me notice I made several mistakes; let me fix the whole thing.

User avatar
DaveMcW
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 3699
Joined: Tue May 13, 2014 11:06 am
Contact:

Re: Solar ratios

Post by DaveMcW »

roothorick wrote: = 125 "seconds", or 125 / 416.66... = 30% of a cycle, of night.
This should be 100 seconds, re-read the other thread to see why.

roothorick
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 92
Joined: Mon Aug 11, 2014 5:22 am
Contact:

Re: Solar ratios

Post by roothorick »

DaveMcW wrote:
roothorick wrote: = 125 "seconds", or 125 / 416.66... = 30% of a cycle, of night.
This should be 100 seconds, re-read the other thread to see why.
I don't see that anywhere in the thread. Also, that would be 24%, which doesn't agree with the very first post of that thread. Thirdly, these numbers appear to be correct so far, though I can't tell with precision as my electric demands keep growing due to increased load on electric furnaces.

Post Reply

Return to “Gameplay Help”