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IIWW

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Dec 20, 2013
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Well, I failed to find any nuclear power plant, so I can't use it there (if anyone has a link to video where someone build it please post it).
EDIT: Thanks to Viper1989 I updated it to show the nuclear PP as well.
Also there is no Dam, since I think it's very dependent on it's lengh, power of water etc, so it's hard to get a good reference point.
But, to the point. Besides the two mentioned PP there are 5 other.
NameCost*10^3MW/weekmaintenance/weeknoise pol.pol.
Wind6880750
Adv. Wind1220200750
Coal19405605050
Oil5012019205035
Solar801601200250
Nuclear2006408000500
















From this table I calculated this one:
Namecost/MWmaint./week/MW
Wind75010
Adv. Wind60010
Coal47514
Oil416,716
Solar5007,5
Nuclear312,512,5
















And this one:
Name\NameWindAdv. WindCoalOilSolarNuclear
Windxx68,7555,6x175
Adv. Wind0*x31,2530,6x115
Coalxxx29,2xx
Oilxxxxxx
Solar003,89,8x37,5
Nuclearxx00xx













The second table is: after how many weeks the Power Plant which name is in column will return the investment compared to the one listed in row.
0 means that it's both cheaper and have lower maintenace, thus returning instantly, with Adv Wind/Wind with asterix due to the fact that it's not more efficient (so if You won't change from Wind to Advanced Wind You won't lose money).

EDIT: Thanks to Ateerix providing me with "Fusion power plant wonder" statistics I'll also add it here. It's out of analysis, since it's a wonder and is extremly Efficient in every way.
build cost *10^3MW/weekmaint/weeknoise pol.polutioncost/MWmaint/MW/week
Fusion power plant wonder1 00016 0008 00075062,50,5

It's extremly efficient, opun unlocking build it ASAP! You can only have one though, so if You believe 16 000 MW would not be enough for Your city (perhaps in long run) do not destroy solar power plants, rather disable them (if it would prove to put maintenance to 0).
EDIT END
Now, the conclusions:

Solar Power Plant is by far superior when compared to any other PP, so Player should always aim to replace whole energy production to Solar as soon as the budget allows.

Nuclear power plants are useless, since they are less cost-effective than Solar (which are unlocked earlier). They do however have lower build cost and they will take less space per MW than Photovoltaic cells, so they can be very situationally useful. But, as a general rule of thumbs, one should stick with solar energy.

One should never (unless there is problem with space, of course) upgrade from Wind PP to Advanced Wind PP, but upon unlocking Advanced one one should forget about the first one (unless the situation is dire (lack of energy and budget), but in fact it applies to all rules, unless stated otherwise, so I would stop writing that).

The return rate of Wind PP when compared to Coal PP is very long, so in my opinion only the first one, maybe two power plant (for initial use, when demand for energy is low, and budget and income can be troublesome) the next PP should be Coal.

Advanced Wind PP has far better return rate, so it should be the main power station from the moment of unlocking it up to the moment of unlocking Solar PP.

Oil PP are pretty much redundand, since the return rate of Advanced wind PP is reasonably low, and the latter are unlocked earlier.

Since the game offers us extremly large amount of space (36km^2) Polution of both types shouldn't be a concern in well planned city, thus I haven't accounted them. I also haven't considered incineration plants, as they are mainly a way to get rid of garbage (it would be extremly unlikely that someone would build them in order to get energy, it's an additional bonus).

_________________________________________
Side note: I wanted to do this also for water treatment facility and sewage dump, but sewage is in almost every way better that treatment plant. With so much space the water polution is pretty much only looking bad. Unless the player has totally failed in planning his city (and, I don't know, forgot about possibility of moving services? seriously, this is weak) or has very limited access to river (which also is a bit weak, there will almost certainly be an area with long enough bank available) there is no point in puting more expensive (both in terms of build cost and maintenance) facility.
_________________________________________
I want to thank Viper1989 for posting a nuclear power plant statistics. Thanks to Danny-Dynamita for pointing out a culculus mistake. Thanks to Ateerix for providing data for fusion power plant wonder.
 
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Thanks for this.

Solar power is cheap in upkeep in real life to, but they are occupying to much space to be a viable alternative everywhere in RL. Plus the fact that they are useless in large parts of the world in the seasons we are needing it most. Since they are so cheap in the game they should probably be bigger, to balance it out?

Well done! Thanks!

I still wonder about nuclear power. I tought i read somewhere that we would have it?
Yes, they are there as a late-game item.

Edit: You should consider putting this on the Wiki.
 
Thanks for this.

Solar power is cheap in upkeep in real life to, but they are occupying to much space to be a viable alternative everywhere in RL. Plus the fact that they are useless in large parts of the world in the seasons we are needing it most. Since they are so cheap in the game they should probably be bigger, to balance it out?


Yes, they are there as a late-game item.

Edit: You should consider putting this on the Wiki.

You forgot one important reason to ben a real alternative in RL.
Windmills dont produce a constant amount of energy which means you'll always need a coal/gas plant besides to fill this gap in power fluctuations. Since windmills in C:SL dont have this disadvantages they are unrealistic good power source in the game.

Windmills don't run on wind, they run on subsidies

First thing I'll do is make a disgusting polluting oil plant.
 
You forgot one important reason to ben a real alternative in RL.
Windmills dont produce a constant amount of energy which means you'll always need a coal/gas plant besides to fill this gap in power fluctuations. Since windmills in C:SL dont have this disadvantages they are unrealistic good power source in the game.

Windmills don't run on wind, they run on subsidies

First thing I'll do is make a disgusting polluting oil plant.

That is a good point and yes our government have been really hard on the windmills so they have put in some extra taxes on our power to cover the cost of building and running them even though we already get almost all our power from water which already is clean energy.

I guess water can be really great if you have a place on your map with good water-flow.
 
Would producing oil / ore "in house" reduce maintenance cost since you would no longer be buying fuel from outside sources?

Natural resources and power plants
Oil and ore can be used to run oil power plant and coal power plant, respectively. Each power plants has a reserve when they are built but once the reserve runs out, they require correct fuel from either the local specialized industry or from outside the city. These power plants work the same way whether the city has its own resource production or not. However, setting up, for example, ore industry and having a coal power plant to buy the goods they produce the player can make sure that they get the most tax income due to the mutual benefit gained from local industry (ore industry) selling their products to another local entity (the coal power plant).

I have only watched some of Quill's and Arumba's videos and I do not recall them checking the cost effectiveness of coal and oil power plants after starting the mining industry. There still might be some monetary benefit from using coal and oil plants.
 
Would producing oil / ore "in house" reduce maintenance cost since you would no longer be buying fuel from outside sources?



I have only watched some of Quill's and Arumba's videos and I do not recall them checking the cost effectiveness of coal and oil power plants after starting the mining industry. There still might be some monetary benefit from using coal and oil plants.
As far as I understood this statement (the one from devs) it does not reduce maintenance, it increases the tax revenue. The cost of buying the coal is the same, but since You don't get taxes from resources produced outside of Your city buying them from inside industry provides additional taxed step. I will update it on tuesday when I'll be able to see how much money You can get from this, and how it (effectively) decreases maintenance. Harder to check, and highly dependent on tax values, but entirely possible to calculate.
 
Arumba has just unlocked nuclear plants at "Colossal City" 44,000 population:

Cost: 200,000
Main: 8,000/week
Power: 640MW
Noise: 50
Water: 1920m3 /week


Heh, "Colossal City"... I see what you did there CO.
 
Arumba has just unlocked nuclear plants at "Colossal City" 44,000 population:

Cost: 200,000
Main: 8,000/week
Power: 640MW
Noise: 50
Water: 1920m3 /week


Heh, "Colossal City"... I see what you did there CO.
Thanks, updated!
 
Here's the LINK for the nuclear power plant in Arumba's video in case anyone is looking for it.

@IIWW. I think you mis-placed a decimal point in the nuclear PP MW/week. It should be 12.5/week, not 1.25.
 
One note about Advanced Wind PP's. They can be put over water, according to Skye's use, and noise pollution can be minimized by distance over water.
What I can't get is why solar has 25 noise. The only noise from them might be caused by the motors turning the collectors. They should be barely audible, unless you have a lot of panels. :)
 
You should add the water pumps to nuclear cost and maintenance. Dont know if that is one, two or whatever amount of pumps needed to cover that need. But it might make a change.

Pump capacity is 120,000/week. So 1.6% is needed to service nuclear power.
 
One note about Advanced Wind PP's. They can be put over water, according to Skye's use, and noise pollution can be minimized by distance over water.
What I can't get is why solar has 25 noise. The only noise from them might be caused by the motors turning the collectors. They should be barely audible, unless you have a lot of panels. :)
Yeah, it's just financial analisis. But with 36 km^2 available I don't think space gonna be the problem. We'll see, adv. wind is unlocked pretty early, so (If my tips are implemented) one should have 1-2 wind PP at the moment of unlocking adv. wind PP and 1-2 coal. The latter one should be demolished upon introduction of adv. wind PP, so the are wind PP would take, even with some buffer around them because of noise polution wouldn't take much space.
As for Solar: 25 seems rather low, but yeah, I don't really know where it comes from. Besides motors the inverters and transformators might cause a bit of noise, but thats just a blind guess.
You should add the water pumps to nuclear cost and maintenance. Dont know if that is one, two or whatever amount of pumps needed to cover that need. But it might make a change.
It's neglegible. For maintenance 0,006C/MW, they use 3 m^3 per MW, and water pump produces 120 000 m^3 of water for 240 C. for build cost it adds 0,0625 C/MW (water pump cost 2.500 C).
 
You made a typo in the maintenance/MW of the Nuclear Plant. It's 12'5, not 1'25.

So far I can see the idea of the system - wind energy is "cheaper" in the long run and doesn't cause pollution, but you have to plop down a bazillion of wind turbines and it's pretty situational. Solar energy is pretty much flawless though.

A reduction on the maintenance costs of non-renewable energy sources might be good, but overall they're not as useless as a lot of people seems to think - the difference in mant./MW is so trivial that at the end might be better to plop down a single coal or oil plant than use so many wind turbines. You'll run out of "windy" space eventually, and in the map you are playing there may be no useful spots for wind turbines - or they might be in a resource deposit. The only flaw that I see here is the Solar Energy Plant as I said previously, it produces a lot of energy and as far as I know it's pretty much flawless (and causes very little noise polution).
 
You made a typo in the maintenance/MW of the Nuclear Plant. It's 12'5, not 1'25.

So far I can see the idea of the system - wind energy is "cheaper" in the long run and doesn't cause pollution, but you have to plop down a bazillion of wind turbines and it's pretty situational. Solar energy is pretty much flawless though.

A reduction on the maintenance costs of non-renewable energy sources might be good, but overall they're not as useless as a lot of people seems to think - the difference in mant./MW is so trivial that at the end might be better to plop down a single coal or oil plant than use so many wind turbines. You'll run out of "windy" space eventually, and in the map you are playing there may be no useful spots for wind turbines - or they might be in a resource deposit. The only flaw that I see here is the Solar Energy Plant as I said previously, it produces a lot of energy and as far as I know it's pretty much flawless (and causes very little noise polution).
Oh God... I haven't made a typo in maint/MW, I made a typo on calculator. The further calculation and analysis are wrong (how have I not seen it? Thanks a lot!). Fixing it. Fixed.
_______
Yeah, I don't think Wind PP are (ecnomic-wise) a good solution. Advanced ones, yeah, but Wind ones are ~useless. You should unlock advanced before they begin to pay off.
 
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Oh God... I haven't made a typo in maint/MW, I made a typo on calculator. The further calculation and analysis are wrong (how have I not seen it? Thanks a lot!). Fixing it. Fixed.
_______
Yeah, I don't think Wind PP are (ecnomic-wise) a good solution. Advanced ones, yeah, but Wind ones are ~useless. You should unlock advanced before they begin to pay off.

It happens to the best. :happy:

I hope you achieve to get done that analysis about how having a local ore/oil industry affects the respective power plants. That might be a deciding factor when deciding which energy option might be the most financially effective.
 
It happens to the best. :happy:

I hope you achieve to get that analysis about how having a local ore/oil industry affects the respective power plants. That might be a deciding factor when deciding which energy option might be the most financially effective.
One of the first things I'm gonna do tommorow*
*tommorow starts at 19:00 CET
 
Fusion power plant wonder:
(requires other unique buildings before unlocked)

1,000,000 initial build cost
8,000 maint/week
0 pollution
75 noise pollution
16,000 MW power output
4,000M3/week
 
Fusion power plant wonder:
(requires other unique buildings before unlocked)

1,000,000 initial build cost
8,000 maint/week
0 pollution
75 noise pollution
16,000 MW power output
4,000M3/week
Wow. Nice. I'm gonna put it "on a side", since it's a wonder, but they are so damn efficient in every way.
EDIT: they are in! Thanks a lot!
 
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