Crazy... eight years and no other comments.

From that, you can derive that you need 28 solar panels and accumulators to keep a RoboPort active continuously. (Assuming it is drawing at it's peak power requirements of 1 MW.)

While you can also derive that each Active Laser Turret requires 67 Panels and Accumulators to allow it to keep firing throughout the night continuously. (Although you only need 1 Accumulator and 1 Panel to keep two Laser Turrets running if they remain idle for the entire evening.)

I'm going to do more statistical forecasting on the laser turret usage to arrive an an optimal ratio for turtling through a Nest (I use between 8-16 Turrets at any time while advancing.)

Sorry, there is a typo earlier...

APRMW * 1.1 * (42+(84*2/2)) / 5 = Panel/Accumulators required

I accidentally did half of Dawn and forgot Dusk


So to short hand that even further:

APRMW * 28 = Panels/Accumulators requires

So if you have 3.5 MW power requirements, you need 3.5*28 = 92 Panels and Accumulators.

If you have more of both, but more accumulators than solar panels, you may or may not fully charge your accumulators but you will never run out of power (and excepting spikes, should usually end up at 100% accumulator storage at the end of every day cycle.) If you have more panels than accumulators, you will recharge batteries more quickly.

Wouldn't it be cool if there were logic controls to say "if night, do this" or "if power is low, do this"?

Of course the ratio fluctates if you want a higher buffer (in the event of lasers and frequent attacks by biters, or other intermittent demands). The more buffer you want, the more Accumulators you need in comparison to Solar Panels.

If you have fewer Accumulators than the formula specifies, you won't last the night, if you have fewer Solar Panels, you may not recharge your Accumulators within the 209 second day cycle. (Discounting the 42 seconds during dawn/dusk when solar power is above 50%, but not yet 100%. This was discounted to provide additional buffer in the calculations, as a safety margin.)

I worked out the math-- to provide a 10% buffer on accumulator power-- multiply your average power requirements (in MW) by 92.4 (1.1 * 84 seconds dawn/night/dusk when power consumption exceeds power production via solar.)

Take that result and divide by 5 (MJ capacity per Accumulator).

Build Panels and Accumulators 1:1 using that number and you'll always have capacity remaining every night (assuming no spikes from laser turrets) and will always fully recharge accumulators the next day.

Recalculate periodically to ensure power grows proportionally to demand.

Simply:
(APRMW * 92.4) / (5) = Solar Panel & Accumulator requirements