Solar vs wind power

[Tynan]

I'm trying to figure out the balance on this. Please vote!

[Hieronymous Alloy]

I like both but I wish it were easier to overlap them in a regular grid. You can fit three solar panels under a wind panel but not regularly and there's lots of wasted or odd grid squares.

[XeoNovaDan]

I use both in conjunction: Solar power for daytime, while wind adds to that, and generates sometimes considerable power at night.

Edit: Went back to Alpha 15 to go to my old A15 colony to offer a perspective on end-game power plant numbers


53 Solar Generators, 16 Wind Turbines and 9 Geothermal Plants for a colony of that scale to be pretty much constantly online

[ruddthree]

My thoughts:

Solar: Cheaper in terms of space, and works pretty much 8-12 hours a day without much interruption - unless night falls, it starts to rain/thunder (lightning strikes CAN activate solar panels briefly, which is cool), or an eclipse occurs. Overall useful, if not a bit OP compared to wind turbines

Wind: In my personal opinion, it's not that good compared with solar panels, but has one notable advantage: wind turbines can work at night and even if an eclipse occurs, if it's raining/thunder-ing, but that said, the amount of power generated fluctuates from time to time (which is understandable, as wind speed isn't constant realistically).

One thing I want to suggest is this: like how wind turbines don't always run at 100% power output all the time, solar panels should be this way too. Like if a cloud passes by, covering sunlight, shouldn't this decrease power output? I know that you're don't always go for realism, but it's a suggestion.

Final Thoughts: By themselves, solar is better, but are good as they are if used together, though solar power might need some improvements.

[DeathWeasel]

Wind, by far. Solar has two many downsides.

Solar is:
More Expensive
Affected by eclipses
Affected by volcanic winter
Less productive in the high and low latitudes

I don't ever use solar.

Over a long enough period of time barring any events, solar and wind seem to produce roughly the same amount but once you factor in events wind comes out way, way ahead.

[GiantSpaceHamster]

I voted for "They're well-balanced, I use both about equally" but what I meant is only the second part, "I use both about equally". I never took the time to formally look at their efficiencies so I use both so that if either one is much better or if they are about the same then I am still covered.

Wind does seem more reliable given some of the events, but I use solar panels more or less just to prevent trees from growing on one side of the wind generator. It bothers the heck out of me that solar panels are not the same shape as the smaller side of the wind generator reserve space though. Ultimately both are a stop-gap until geothermal. A well designed base can easily power 20 pawns worth of equipment with one geothermal, 5 each wind and solar, and 6-10 batteries (depending on the map...i don't play much on the extreme hot/cold biomes). That's my typical configuration.

I noticed that wood furnaces were not even mentioned in the poll.

[JuicyPVP]

I like both but I wish it were easier to overlap them in a regular grid. You can fit three solar panels under a wind panel but not regularly and there's lots of wasted or odd grid squares.

This. 100% agree. I would like a resize to make them grid up better and be more space efficient.

[magicbush]

I use both about equally, but I feel like solar produces a lot more electricity than wind over a period of time, unless you run into an eclipse of course. I think wind could use a slight boost imho, as there will be days I dont seethe wind activate at all

[PiggyBacon]

I sometimes use solar but 98% of the time wind all the way. Turbines may not produce the best power at times but they work 24/7 eclipse or not.

[Goo Poni]

If I remember correctly, putting four wind turbines in a row allows for a box of 5x2 solar panels in front of them. Repeating this, you can build a huge box with the solar panels contained inside. The space in the corners of this wind farm can also be used to set up another 2x2 group of solar panels. It's a massive 30x30 green energy farm when fully built. Produces untold energy for most vanilla bases, I would imagine, but I still needed it to be bigger for my modded colonies.

As for which is better, I find wind to be highly unstable, but with solar I can reliably build enough batteries/solars to manage each night. Wind does function during eclipses and I think during flares.

[GiantSpaceHamster]

It occurred to me that tracking the effectiveness of each type of generator over time during games would be a trivial thing to log. Fluffy's Colony Manager mod may even track this, I know it has a power tab, although I have not explored it. I think a proper analysis of data would be a better approach than how people feel about them or how often they get used.

It would be easily justifiable given that RimWorld is still in Alpha to add a system for reporting on certain kinds of data during games.

[Trylobyte]

When I'm looking at power systems to implement in my base, reliability trumps everything.  I want to make sure that the things I need to work are going to work when I need them to, and as long as the short circuit event functions as it does I definitely want to minimize my reliance on batteries.  So when I look at solar vs. wind, I ask myself which one is going to more reliably power my base.

On the surface, wind power seems more reliable - Solar power is shut down by nighttime, inclement weather, and eclipses, while wind always works.  But where wind becomes unreliable is in the quantity of power it produces.  When my solar generator is running I know exactly how much power it will produce at peak.  I have no idea what my wind generators are going to put out at any given time.  The lower cost of wind generators is offset by the increased need for batteries to make sure things keep working when the wind dies down.

I'd say wind is the weakest power source right now because of its wildly fluctuating output.  If I absolutely need something to run, I'll use geothermal generators or fueled generators, since those always work.  For general power consumption, solar power works fine.  Wind, though?  Wind is what I use to top off batteries, if I use it at all.

[skullywag]

I start with solar and a few batteries once I start hitting the limits of power for my base (starts blacking out at night usually when the batteries dry up) i chuck a few turbines down, I do this repeatedly.

[Sola]

Wind produces more on average, but they're both good.  Solar panels can be placed on the forced empty spots required by wind turbines.  As such, you place solar panels and wind turbines in the same real estate to generate more power.

When I start a game, I always build solar panels first, because they're more reliable and take less space.  As the game goes on, I always make a mix of both.

[Hieronymous Alloy]

I always start with one solar, one wind, one battery.