Power (Building)

This article has not been revised for the current version (U51-600112). It was last updated for LU-356355. It may contain inaccuracies.

Power is needed to run machinery in a subterranean asteroid colony.

Generators can produce power automatically, but they will consume various resources (in case of renewables: heat above 125 °C and daylight).

All carbon burners produce 110+ °C hot Carbon Dioxide in varying amounts, which significantly contributes to their heat-footprint.

For the general behavior of electricity see Power Circuits.

List of power buildings[ | ]

Generators[ | ]

	Manual Generator – available at the beginning. Quite clean, however it occupies valuable duplicant attention to run.
	Coal Generator – obtained from the Tier Two Research tree, category Internal Combustion. Coal Generators are more efficient and clean than Wood Burners or Petroleum Generators, and their fuel is also renewable in a relatively easy way.
	Wood Burner – obtained from the Tier Two Research tree, category Internal Combustion. The most heat-inefficient of generators, it also produces copious amounts of CO₂, however its fuel is easily accessible and renewable via Arbor Trees.
	Hydrogen Generator – obtained from the Tier Three Research tree, category Advanced Power Regulation. The cleanest and the most heat-efficient of continuous burners. However, Hydrogen is sparse and has other important applications.
	Natural Gas Generator – obtained from the Tier Three Research tree, category Fossil Fuels. The cleanest, most efficient carbon-burner, however supply of its fuel can be somewhat limited without late-game conversion installations.
	Petroleum Generator – Obtained from the Tier Three Research tree, category Fossil Fuels. Burns through the fuel and creates a lot of by-products, including heat.
	Steam Turbine – obtained from the Tier Five Research tree, category Renewable Energy. It allow to get energy from heat directly, but requires some complicated setups.
	Solar Panel – makes power from space, clean and renewable, but must be protected from Meteor Showers. Also there is only so much asteroid surface.

Wires[ | ]

	Wire — available at the beginning Wire Bridge — Obtained from the Tier One Research tree, category Power Regulation. Bridges allow wires to run past each other without merging.
	Heavi-Watt Wire and Heavi-Watt Joint Plate — obtained from the Tier Three Research tree, category Advanced Power Regulation. Heavi-Watt wires can carry 20 times more power than normal wires, but are very bad for Decor. They also can't be run through or inside tiles, but the Joint Plate lets it run through walls/floors that are 1 tile wide.
	Conductive Wire and Conductive Wire Bridge — Obtained from the Tier Four Research tree, category Low-Resistance Conductors. Conductive Wires carry twice as much power as normal wires without any decor penalties, but they can only be built from Refined Metal which makes them more expensive.
	Heavi-Watt Conductive Wire and Heavi-Watt Conductive Joint Plate — Obtained from the Tier Four Research tree, category Low-Resistance Conductors. This is to Heavi-Watt wire as the Conductive wire is to ordinary wire; even better power flow (50 times better than normal wire) and better Decor with the same level of convenience, but it requires lots of refined metal.

Batteries[ | ]

Batteries store extra power that your duplicants create. They must be tied via power wires to run. They are used when no power is currently produced until they run out of stored power. Batteries are not limited in their output, if the network currently demands more than the wire can support even one battery can overload the wire.

Batteries slowly discharge when not in use. The amount of discharge (called "Power runoff") depends on the battery type.

Although not a battery themselves, power transformers also store some power - with the benefit that they do not discharge over time.

Battery - available at the beginning. Formerly known as "Tiny Battery" in previous versions.

Jumbo Battery - Obtained from the Tier One Research tree, category Power Regulation.

Jumbo Batteries hold 40 kJ of electricity, which is 4 times more than the normal Battery.

Smart Battery - Obtained from the Tier Three Research tree, category Sound Amplifiers.

Smart Batteries store 20 kJ of electricity, less than the Jumbo Battery, but they can utilize Automation to manage your power grid,

i.e by turning off a power-producing building so it doesn't waste resources generating power when nothing can accept it.

Regulators[ | ]

	Power Transformer - obtained from Advanced Power Regulation, protect your networks from overload, however they are not powerful enough to fully utilize Conductive Wires without being placed in couples.
	Large Power Transformer - obtained from Low-Resistance Conductors, more powerful transformer, but can overload Conductive Wires.
	Switch - Obtained from the Tier One Research tree, category Power Regulation. The Switch is controlled directly by the player, allowing you to control the flow of electricity.
	Power Shutoff - Obtained from the Tier Three Research tree, category Advanced Power Regulation. The Power Shutoff uses automation signals to do the same thing as the Switch without the need for player interaction.