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Topics - Triklino

#1
Ideas / Better Batteries
October 30, 2019, 08:00:19 PM
Hey guys. This game is fantastic, I've spent far too much time playing it, and the only complaint I have is how the game handles battery storage. I'm also a large scale battery storage operator, so I'm nitpicking details nobody gives a shit about but hey.

Charging/discharging

It would be nice to:

1. Set charge/discharge rates for batteries

2. Size storage units during construction, with the penalty for larger systems being a scaling factor of more resources. (With obviously a reasonable max size)

3. If 2 is not possible, then being able to aggregate blocks of storage units into systems would be great to reduce the micro-managing of individual units.

4. Create schedules for battery storage units. Example: "I'd like system A to only charge between 10:00 and 13:00, systems B and D to charge 12:00 to 17:00 and system C to only charge from 12:00 to 17:00 if total grid demand is < 75% of max system output and systems B and D are > 80% capacity" (I went into far too much detail in this one, if the first part of my example is all that's understood then that's all I really want anyway :) )

5. It'd be nice to designate what generating resource the battery is specifically charging from and what rate. This would allow us to tell a battery "Use 80% Solar, 5% Geothermal, 5% hydro and 10% traditional (Wood/Biofuel furnaces)" which would help when solar production stops and you don't want to start charging 50 battery units straight from primary grid power. Paired with idea #1, which will allow to fine-tune even further (rates of charging), it makes batteries a more viable utility. Also helps with intermittent resources, namely solar - allows the remaining 20% of solar output that the BESS's will not be using to contribute to grid power during the day instead of being wholly absorbed by storage.

6. Reduce the amount of "zzzt's", because it's unrealistic and annoying. A battery system won't discharge its full energy in a single instant, 35 km down the circuit by some random piece of equipment. Generally speaking, if a storage unit releases all of its stored energy at one time it has exploded/caught fire, and not some random piece of conduit. If you're going for a somewhat realistic scenario make heat a problem and not the random discharge of like 15 mW of energy at some random point down the circuit. If you want something to explode, either make it the battery itself or create an inverter, slap that baby on as an addition between storage unit and grid, have it act as a physical limitation on charge/discharge rates, and make that explode. This is honestly the most annoying thing, but I also make my living on making sure bad things don't happen - which means I have to know every bad thing that CAN happen, so take it with a grain of salt.

7. Degradation. Storage units degrade over time, whether it's overall available capacity or ability to manage power quality, there's a lifespan on these things. Typically determined by cycles, heat, and a TON of other variables, it would be easier to just put a daily timer on the system (or for a more dynamic approach, use total amount of energy discharged and charged over time [Which feeds into being able to smartly set charge and discharge rates, thereby extending lifetimes of systems]).

All this being said the game is amazing, and I think it would be cool to see the game with a more realistic energy-grid infrastructure.