[MOD] (Alpha 10) Thermoelectric Generator (v1.2) - Embrace the Heat and Cold!

[theubie]

Infinite Possibility Games
proudly introduces:

The RimWorld Themoelectric Generator!




Live in a very warm or very cold biome?  Is it a lot warmer in one room than another?  Perhaps you've got a geothermal generator enclosed and it's making massive heat...convert that imbalance in temperature into usable power!  Don't just vent it, use it!

Simply place the Thermoelectric Generator into any wall as you would a vent, hook it into your power grid, ? ? ?, then profit!  As the generator uses the temperature imbalance, the reaction will cool the warmer room and warm the cooler room slightly. 

Download here:  http://infinitepossibilitygames.com/RimworldMods/ThermoelectricGenerator.1.2.zip

Previous versions: http://infinitepossibilitygames.com/RimworldMods/ThermoelectricGenerator.1.0.zip
http://infinitepossibilitygames.com/RimworldMods/ThermoelectricGenerator.1.1.zip

Changelog:

v1.2:
- Adjusted power output.  (brought it up by a factor of 2)
- Adjusted temperature adjustment down to make it easier to heat/cool rooms with small numbers of TEGs but still make it hard to keep up with multiple
v1.1:
- Fixed debug values for heat gain/loss due to reactions.
- TEG now has reduced efficiency in higher levels of temperature differences
- TEG is no longer capable of warming/cooling the outside world.
- Adjusted power gain rates to make it a bit more "real" (technical term)
v1.0:
- Initial Public Release

[deadlydullahan]

interesting concept, i like it.I look forward to seeing where this goes. 

[xort]

I guess the only question is if you can cheat the system and heat a room with a heater then use the temperature gradient to the outside to make more power than it takes to run the heaters.

I mostly run on ice sheets that hit as low as -90C so I have lots of difference between my inside and the out. My latest game has a summer high of -35C.   

[theubie]

That should be taken into account.  The power gains should be fairly small on an individual, and each one does the temperature adjustment, so the temperature cooling/heating scales up.  I am still tweaking exact values, but there should eventually be a fall off on power as you try to use more, but the point is that with super cold or super hot bios, there is already a lot of potential energy to be harvested.  This allows that to take place, but increased the burden on your heating/cooling inside.

[xort]

Other than steam geysers (and camp fires) all of the heating and cooling is because of electrical energy being spent, or a change in the outside temp. The amount of heat you get out of a geyser is less than what you get out of the heating from electric heaters, but you actually get both as the geothermal plants do kick out waste heat as well.

In the real world you can get temperature changes from all sorts of situations, but the game doesn't model that. Like sea water under ice and air temp, or ground temp and air temp, or water depth.

If you scale the output due to the temperature change, going from 20C to -90C should give a very large efficiency as that's 110 degrees of difference. For no real reason I use a mod for building ducts to connect up my base and I keep my 'boiler room' at 60C so that a single vent can heat a 6x6 room to 21C.  That's 150 degrees of difference. But I keep my boiler room away from the outside to avoid too much heat loss. (I actually use the heat loss through the wall to heat my food cooler a bit).

I can't see any way to make your generator that isn't just an outright violation of the conservation of energy or is just taking the small about of geothermal waste heat. Not that it matters for game play. For a hot environment you are fighting against your cooling units. Their is no way around that. For it to be worth it, output must be higher than the energy cost of the cooler.

If you totally rig the system and have your TEG with one side in a max cold freeze and the other side on a max heat sauna. Boom free energy if it can pay for the energy output costs of each. It gets even better when the cooler's output is in the hot side of the room.

I guess in the end it's up to people to abuse the device only as much as they want.

[theubie]

You bring up valid points on all accounts.  In the end, it's up to anyone using any mod to not abuse systems.  I just setup a base in a moderately cold environment and a single TEG was not enough to maintain a comfortable heating level in a small base using a single heater.  Even a temperature deviation of 100 degrees will still net you less than a heater or cooler can produce if using a single TEG.  There is a break even point, but the cost in resources, build time and space make it a less attractive method of power than geothermal (or other, better power sources found in other mods).  I find it does a good job of offsetting power costs over night when you are dependent on solar, but the low returns make them impractical for powering a full scale base.

In the end, like any mod, some people will like it while others won't.  It's just something different out there for people to use if they wish.

I do appreciate the input though!  I will continue to tweak the settings until it "feels" right, which is my philosophy in making mods.  Realism is great, but shouldn't trump play-ability and "fun".

[xort]

I was able to get around 1500W of output from a single TEG, cooler/heater setup but I was running into problems with heat transfer from the extreme temps working to balance out more than the TEG was.

Maybe if I made a 1x7 hallway with the TEG at the center and the the bulk of the space further back I could push the output higher using only the TEG to power the systems. But in honesty the natural heat loss to the outside temperature really starts to eat into the system.

As I said I like to play on ice sheets and the TEG can get power generation up for a basic safety room almost instantly. A 2x4 room with 3 beds, 1 heater, the TEG and a door means I can get by the first day without much problem. It's slightly faster to set up than a solar panel and battery.

A basic setup of the TEG right beside a cooler and or a heater works and will output a net of maybe 800W with 1 TEG and much more if you build them side by side. The heat transfer between sides is not that large and you can build a number of them before they 'over power' the output of the coolers and heaters.

This mod also would help building a basic freezer system on a not freezing all the time map. Build your room put in a cooler with a TEG beside it and now you have a closed system that self powers. Your only issue is solar flares now.

Anyway, great mod thanks for your work and for your neat idea.

[theubie]

I was able to get around 1500W of output from a single TEG, cooler/heater setup but I was running into problems with heat transfer from the extreme temps working to balance out more than the TEG was.

Maybe if I made a 1x7 hallway with the TEG at the center and the the bulk of the space further back I could push the output higher using only the TEG to power the systems. But in honesty the natural heat loss to the outside temperature really starts to eat into the system.

As I said I like to play on ice sheets and the TEG can get power generation up for a basic safety room almost instantly. A 2x4 room with 3 beds, 1 heater, the TEG and a door means I can get by the first day without much problem. It's slightly faster to set up than a solar panel and battery.

A basic setup of the TEG right beside a cooler and or a heater works and will output a net of maybe 800W with 1 TEG and much more if you build them side by side. The heat transfer between sides is not that large and you can build a number of them before they 'over power' the output of the coolers and heaters.

This mod also would help building a basic freezer system on a not freezing all the time map. Build your room put in a cooler with a TEG beside it and now you have a closed system that self powers. Your only issue is solar flares now.

Anyway, great mod thanks for your work and for your neat idea.

The closed room is something I just now realized is a potential abuse of the system.  I'm working on a way to try to make that less of a viable option.  I did find a very efficient closed reactor setup with them, even if it wasn't my intention to do so.     I have a few ideas I'm working with to try to discourage that from happening. 

I'm leaning to towards making them degrade if over a certain threshold of power generation, thus making a closed system hazardous to maintain (either the TEGs themselves will break and thus "depressurize" the system, or you'd have to send someone into a potentially life threatening hot/cold room to fix them.), but I'm trying to come up with other ideas.

As for using it to power a small room:  I'm still in the tweaking stage of the numbers on it.  I'm running a map on an ice sheet and am trying to balance it out where you would need at least 2 TEGs to power a small room like you described. 

I also realized I left a debug value for the heat gain/loss in the assembly when I published.  V1.1 should be out today sometime.

[deadlydullahan]

I would recommend a system in which the more extreme the temperature difference is, the faster the TEG degrades. This might be somewhat of a balance in terms of providing a helpful start in harsh conditions like ice sheet while also making it annoying to maintain certain closed systems later in the game which could discourage abuse of the closed system. Heck maybe implament an incident where TEGs run off a limited life span or provide less energy over time, requiring the player to reconstruct a new one or find another method.

[theubie]

A lifespan counter could be doable.  Say, after generating 5000W (25kW for plasteel) it would start to take damage based on how much power it's outputting.  Could even scale it exponentially so that eventually trying to keep up with repairing it would be too much. 

That's an interesting idea.

[xort]

I think that your mod is fine as it is. Tweek the numbers if you want, but overall it's not really abusive.

I started up a new ice sheet map and had about 300W of output between a 21C inside and -30C outside. At the cost of 100 steel a pop and the lost heat from not only the TEG but also the opening it's a fair balance.

Having your TEG break would be bad as it instantly changes the temperature to the outside if connected to the outside or evens out to whatever it was bridging. On mid temperature maps the steam geyser if contained in a room will heat up to a very high amount, so your TEG gives a way to cool it off and make some free power. That's a good idea.

On -90C maps the steam geysers are used for heating if you can get one connected to your base. The loss of heat when between a very cold outside and a liveable inside is less than what can be produced from it's energy generation and a heater. Net gain.

If you make the TEG decay over time all you have really made is a generator that burns steel as fuel.

I think that having some damage happen to ALL generators would simulate upkeep and would be an interesting idea overall. But that could rightfully be a whole standalone mod.

[theubie]

Perhaps rather than having the unit break and expose the interior to the outside world, it could simple lose efficiency over time, this would warrant needing to be replaced without the catastrophic situation of exposing inside to outside.

[theubie]

v1.1 is up.  Change log in first post.

Apparently the TEG was a bit more powerful than I thought, since it could be used to control the weather...

[deadlydullahan]

it could simple lose efficiency over time, this would warrant needing to be replaced without the catastrophic situation of exposing inside to outside.

This was kinda what I meant in a sense but wasn't sure the best way to explain it

[xort]

I think your new non world changing version is a bit out of balance and dumps far too much heat. With a single TEG 7 heaters can't raise the temp past -14C when the outside is -30C.

3 Heaters is enough without the TEG to keep the temp at 21C.

Also the power output on a 15 degree difference is 17W.

Running from 51C to -30C I'm getting 75W at 86% efficient using 2 heaters running at 100W.