Energy Demand Satisfaction Display Isn't Reading Properly

[TheWhiteProphet]

Hey. I have one steam engine and a load of solar panels for power production. Whenever it's night the bar for electric demand satisfaction on all of the power poles shows accurately, but during day when the solar panels are up and running it shows that only about a quarter of the demand is satisfied. Whenever I check anything electrical (and I mean everything) they are all fully supplied with electricity. The steam engine also fades off as the solar panels take up the power demands as normal but the solar panels always go fully on (produce the full 60kW compared to producing a third of it if that is all that's required like a steam engine would, never checked before if solar panels do that too). And when I check on the power supply I produce about 3.2-3.4MW and consume that much and apparently that's a quarter, even with nothing needing any more electricity. Don't know if that's enough info but if you need more let me know It's not a major issue but it has led me to unnecessarily (at this stage) build many solar panels (in excess of 250 or 300, when I probably only need 100-150).

As a side note, I still love the game

[johanwanderer]

I believe the bar shows the current supply and the potential supply, so when the green bar is half-full, it means you are only using 50% of the available power.

For example, in this picture here:

(https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 93&t=13381)

The current *usage* is 200+ MW, and the green bar is only 20% or so full. What that shows is that my network's capacity is roughly 1 GW, and I'm only using 20% of it.

[posila]

Thanks for report. This seems to be related to electric energy source bug that also caused power shields charge instantly. This should be already fixed for 0.12.1

johanwanderer: You are right about the bars. However on your screenshot, consumption is 208 MW but individual production values add up to 168.7 MW and that is the problem.

[TheWhiteProphet]

Johanwanderer, it was that the consumption bar only showed a quarter and the production was maxed out, but nothing was missing electricity.

posila, I look forward to 12.1 as I already love the game and it'll make it even better!

[TheWhiteProphet]

This is what I mean

Ps. sorry for the massive picture, I don't really take screenshots

[johanwanderer]

This is what I mean

Ps. sorry for the massive picture, I don't really take screenshots

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but that looks like you are producing 2.6 MW, and the factory is using all of it, but it could really use a lot more (like 4-5 times as much). If you go to any of the 60 miners, you might see that their energy satisfaction is less than 100%. I'm guessing that, at peak time (noon, for example) your solar panels produce 300 * 60 kW = 18 MW of power. As the sun is setting (or rising) that number changes, and you end up producing much less. You will have to either build more solar panels or add backup power generation.

As to the comment earlier that my graph's numbers don't add up, that's because they are averages, not snapshots.

[TheWhiteProphet]

No, everything has the full amount of electricity required, and the most I have ever produced is about 3.4MW. This apparent lack of power is what I was trying to convey with my original message but I'm not good at explaining things That 2.6MW was everything fully on with no need for any more electricity, as can be explained by the fact that my steam engine isn't on as they only come on if there is extra power required.

[TheWhiteProphet]

Update: Adding accumulators to my power grid seems to have fixed whatever display issue was going on there.