Shortouts ONLY occur when at least a single battery is connected to a power circuit. You can have tons of charged batteries lying around; as long as none is connected to any power cord, you are safe. This applies to both alpha 7 & 8.
A common tactic is to have a room with reserve batteries, fully charge them and then deconstruct a single piece of power cord connecting them to the main circuit. That way, accidental explosions are practically unheard of and - in the event some raid leaves your power production capabilities limited - you can simply reconnect the one power cord and continue to function for a while until your base has other power sources available.
IMO, this behaviour is nonsensical - I currently have three geothermal and ten wind-powered sources and no batteries at all. The power coursing through my circuit is huge - but no chance of explosion whatsoever. Connect a SINGLE battery and see what happens. Also, if batteries are the source of said explosions, why don't the batteries explode but a random piece of wiring? It makes no sense!
A common tactic is to have a room with reserve batteries, fully charge them and then deconstruct a single piece of power cord connecting them to the main circuit. That way, accidental explosions are practically unheard of and - in the event some raid leaves your power production capabilities limited - you can simply reconnect the one power cord and continue to function for a while until your base has other power sources available.
IMO, this behaviour is nonsensical - I currently have three geothermal and ten wind-powered sources and no batteries at all. The power coursing through my circuit is huge - but no chance of explosion whatsoever. Connect a SINGLE battery and see what happens. Also, if batteries are the source of said explosions, why don't the batteries explode but a random piece of wiring? It makes no sense!