Steam world solar power mod

How many steam engines per solar panel?

We need 0.066667 steam engines per solar panel. 3/4 done, now comes the tricky part, calculating the storage tank count. First we calculate for how many ticks the storage is filled every day. One day in Factorio is 25000 ticks and split into four parts: day (12500 ticks), sunset (5000), night (2500), sunrise (5000).

How many solar panels per steam tank?

Your math looks good to me, here's another way to calculate the number of storage tanks you need per solar panel: Accumulator to solar ratio is 0.84 and accumulators store 5MJ. 0.84 * 5 = 4.2, so for every solar panel we need 4.2MJ of storage. One storage tank of 165 degree steam holds 750MJ / 4.2 = 178.571428571 solar panels per steam tank.

Can a steam engine power a base without a solar accumulator?

The steam engines have enough capacity to power your base alone from coal, even if you omit the solar. You build double structures, where only one power plant is running while the other is idle. It is very inefficient, but in real life cheap and overpowered accumulators like in factorio don't exist.

Should we go solar with steam storage tanks instead of accumulators?

I am here to present an alternative: going solar with steam storage tanks instead of accumulators. This approach has many advantages: steam setup is cheaper (iron/copper) than accumulators (by a lot 400% or something) existing steam power plant can easily be extended to serve as a storage system.

Should I add solar panels to my boiler?

Makes sense. Realistically, most people will have 1:2 since they'll already have the boilers from before they got solar panels. In practice, this means that you can scale up power in mid game by adding solar panels and connecting 4 more steam engine and a storage tank to each of your existing boiler setups.

Do solar panels save energy?

The steam is "used" during the day in the sense of being stored for night. At night it's used faster than the boilers can replace it but solar takes over before the steam runs out. All fuel savings is due to having the solar panels, though.