I don't own Workers and Resources Soviet Republic, which is the property of whoever owns it.

I did make this guide though, so I'd appreciate being credited if anyone wants to use it in their work, if they want to translate it into non-English languages (I certainly won't be; sorry, but not really), or whatever they want to do with it.

Steam keeps losing uploaded images (not screenshots) so if some pictures seem to be missing that is probably why. There should be ten images (not screen shots) at all times.

This guide is up to date for v0.8.8.20 and is accurate as far as I can tell from numerous tests, but I did not call this guide "The Complete Guide to Electricity" because I don't know everything about the system.

That said, don't take my guide as me crapping over the developers' game; I think they have done an admirable job in making probably the most realistic simulation of an electrical power grid of any game to date, while keeping the game fun (and that's coming from an electrician). If you are a new player, I'd recommend playing the tutorial for electricity if you haven't already; it is a good crash course on setting up a basic electrical grid.

Having looked at the now very outdated help section on electricity, I decided to make this guide as a reference for people who want to know how the current electrical system works in all its glory or just some aspects. There are sections for explaining the basics to beginners and sections for teaching more experienced players the subtle and obscure nuances of the electrical system. Hopefully you or someone else will find reading this to not be a waste of their time.

There is some terminology I use for brevity's sake, which is all defined in the "The Basic Concepts" section, so I'd recommend reading that part before the others.

"Lenin Electrification

The Volkhovstroy (Volkhov Dam?) gives current!

Soviet power plus electricity equals communism" -Above Poster, probably.

I dedicate this guide to Gin. I couldn't have done it without you.

If you are keen on getting started, but don't care for the complex aspects of the electrical system, then I would recommend reading only the following sections in addition to playing the game's tutorial:

• Basic Concepts and Definitions
  
• Meters and Overlays
  
• Basic Grid Limits and Mechanics

I would also highly recommend that you avoid connecting power sources together, as this has the most potential for problems in your Republic's electrical system.

Basic concepts, units, and terms are explained here.


Energy is used in the game to make buildings and some vehicles work and is used in some industrial processes. Megawatt hours (MWh) are used by the game as a unit of energy.

Power is used by the game to show the flow of energy leaving or being consumed in a building. The game uses Megawatts (MW) and kilowatts (kW) as units for power. Some buildings like the restaurant can function without power, but at a reduced efficiency.

The game lists the amount of MWh and/or MW a building will need or output and record how much power you used, sold, & bought as MWh. Smaller loads and electric vehicle power ratings may be listed in kilowatts (kW) which are 1/1000th of a MW. Note that the building's MWh rating is for one "day."

To convert between a building's listed daily MWh and MW, simply divide MWh by 60 hours (a "day" for facilities is 60 hours, with an hour being a real life second. Citizens follow their own "days" which are not the same; don't think too hard about time in this game.)

Voltage is used in the game to simulate the level of energy a building currently has, and is very useful for troubleshooting electrical supply problems. The game only uses two units for voltage; the Kilovolt (KV) and the volt (V), while having three levels of voltage: Low voltage at 240V, Medium Voltage at 22KV, and High Voltage at 110KV. Voltage will vary a bit depending on supply and loading (see below under meters) as the game will use it to determine where energy (and thus power) should flow. See the "Basic Grid Theory" section for a more thorough explanation.

Conversion Formulas:

• MWh = MW x time; typically this will be MWh per day, so time will usually be 60 seconds.
  
• MW = MWh / time.
  
• MW (or MWh) = kW (or kWh) x 1000; that is, 1 MW = 1000 kW & 1 MWh = 1000 kWh.
  
• kW = MW / 1000; that is, 1 kW = 1/1000th of a MW.
  
• KV = 1000 * V; that is, 1 KV = 1000 volts.

Players should be aware that a little bit of fluctuation in voltage and power is normal and fine.

Some terms defined for convenience:

• Grid - An electrical system of power sources, nodes, and loads. I am not referring to the total collection of all a republic's electrical equipment/facilities when I use the word "grid", but just all the components that are connected together. A republic can have multiple electric grids.
  
  
• Node - Parts of a grid where power is split or joined. Examples include the HV and MV switches, the transformer, and the substation. I am not talking about the connection points where power lines begin and terminate at (the yellow triangles). Power plant switch gear are not nodes.
  
  
• Load and Loading - This is anything that consumes electrical power. For multiple power sources, the power the load draws from the grid will be referred to as "loading" to avoid confusion.
  
  
• Brownout - A condition where buildings are still receiving power, but the voltage is much lower than usual. This is typical of a grid or portion of a grid under heavy load. Power issue warnings may be issued by the game.
  
  
• Blackout - A condition where buildings on a grid are receiving no power. Voltage may be entirely absent or periodically spiking up and down from zero. This is typical of a severely under powered grid.
  
  
• Transient - A rather large and sudden change in power/voltage on a grid due a load or power source starting/stopping. Examples include an electric train accelerating from a stop or an aluminum factory stopping or starting production.
  
  
• HV, MV, or LV - Abbreviations for High Voltage, Medium Voltage, and Low Voltage, respectively. Typically used to denote the voltage of a switch, power line/cable, or connection point.

You can press E+C+L to reset the energy levels in all buildings to zero (except producers, who will just dip a bit), but the game cannot be paused for it to work.

Be aware that this is literally throwing away energy that you bought or produced, and that you will need to buy or produce more energy (watch your power plants when you do it) to refill your building's energy levels. Don't do it unless your grid is acting up and you think resetting it will help (it probably won't).

Each building with electricity will have two electrical meters for voltage and power, and each meter has two portions: an analog gauge with a needle, and a "digital" output below the gauge.

• The gauge portion will display the building's operating range (from zero to the building's maximum), and it will display the reading with the needle.
  
• The digital portion will display the exact reading present and also tells you what units the meter uses; voltage is displayed in either KV or V, while power is always displayed in MW (even if it isn't very practicable).

The maximum voltage spec on the gauge will also be black if a decent supply voltage is present and will be red if insufficient voltage is present.

*Note that the heating plant is "operating without issues" despite having no power. I think this bug has been fixed, but if you have other buildings not working as intended, check the electrical meters.

Voltage meters and the voltage overlay in the game help give you an idea as to the state of the grid that the building is connected to. Keep in mind that these meters are displaying local information so nodes further away may not be accurately represented.

• With voltage reading at its maximum, it means that the building is connected to a powered grid operating well within its limits (discussed below).
  
• If the voltage falls a little bit below maximum (say 90-95% of maximum) then the grid is nearing a limit in supplying energy to the meter's building.
  
• If the voltage falls to 80% or less of its maximum, a limit is definitely being reached, and the game may start issuing power outage notices.
  
• If the meter reads zero, then either the building is not connected to a powered grid, or the grid is severely overloaded.
  
• If voltage is oscillating severely, then the grid is unstable or possibly undergoing a power transient (discussed in a later section).

Power meters and the wattage overlay can be used to determine the output of power producers and the demand of power users, and are crucial for detecting ghost power (discussed later). Keep in mind that for the voltage switches and transformers, this number denotes the net power leaving from, or being consumed by, the node or building, which may seem screwed up sometimes due to the way the game simulates electricity (explained in a later section). Power meters and the wattage overlay are also useful for troubleshooting, mostly to see if a power line or node is at capacity or using more current than it should be getting.


Overlays are best for viewing grids at large for troubleshooting purposes, yet more experienced players can use it to see the flow of energy a la matrix style.

The game provides two overlays for electricity readings under "Building properties" in the overlays menu; one for voltage and one for wattage (power). The overlays will only display in MW and Volts (V), but are more precise than the meters; power will be displayed down to the 1/10,000ths of a MW (i.e. tenths of a kW), while voltage will not be rounded up or down to KV.

The second, more important function of these overlays is the ability to see the conditions of power lines and cables though the use of color highlighting.

• Voltage overlay: Green denotes the line can transmit energy; no other colors are used.
  
• Wattage overlay: Color denotes how close a line is to its power limit; closer to dark green means far from the limit, while closer to dark red means it is at or over the limit.
  
• Both overlays: No color highlight means the line doesn't connect anything to another node, or that the grid it connects to has no power. Use this to find or check for disconnected lines or Ghost Gates (explained later).

Keep in mind that you need to let the game run for it to highlight the lines.

Note the uncolored and unconnected 1.5 MW line, the green unloaded 2.35 MW line, and the fully loaded red 18 MW line.

Be aware that rebuilding cables can hide problems...

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There is also a third electrical overlay for "Buildings networks connections" under the "City planning overlays" in the overlay menu. This overlay will display low voltage connection points for buildings and will highlight buildings that are connected to a LV source in green, while unconnected buildings have no overlay.

The game tracks electricity usage in two places:

• Under the Economy and trade tab.
  
• At local accounting offices

In both cases, you click on "Domestic production and consumption" and then click on "overall" under the "Production of resources" heading.

The Economy and trade tab will show you all the power usage in your republic and it can even show how much was used over various periods of time. You can also look to see power usage by citizen's facilities or by industrial usage.

The accounting offices will show you the power used by a "city/area" since its creation, regardless of whether the accounting office was built then or any time after. Like the Economy and trade tab, you can also look at industrial facilities usage or citizen facility usage, but sadly, there does not appear to be an option to look at usage over time.

You might use the economy and trading tab to calculate how much you spend on electricity while the accounting office can be used to track electricity usage over time by placing a new city/area and deleting the old one to "reset" accounting office statistics (old data will be lost forever though!).

This section explains the functions of the various electrical buildings included in the game. Modded buildings should follow suit, but could be different.

Buildings that produce power. There are a few different power sources, but as far as the game cares there are three types:

• Fuel Based Power Plants - Power for fuel. See gas, coal, and nuclear plants.
  
• Renewable Power - Power for free, if it's there. See windmills and the solar plant.
  
• The Foreign Power connections - Power for money.

Fuel based plants need fuel and workers to function but they are compact for their power rating, reliable (provided you can keep them supplied), and can supply grids independently. Be aware that the nuclear plants also need a cooling tower for each reactor.

The renewable powers' outputs depend on the weather, the current conditions for which you can find at the top of the gui near the speed buttons. Their power output, while free, is varied and so may need a backup power source to prevent power shortages.

• A windmill's power capacity at a given time = Power rating × (W ÷ T), where W is the current wind speed, T is the windmill's top wind speed, and (W ÷ T) is capped at 1.0. Elevation and proximity to other windmills, mountains, or buildings have no effect on a windmill's power production.
  
  The top speeds for a the large and small windmills are 35 m/s & 25 m/s. Since the wind is typically ~10 m/s, the small windmill is much more efficient than the large one (especially from a power output to material cost viewpoint), but the large windmills do produce more power per connection point though, which is a constraint for reasons explained later in this guide.
  
  
• The solar plant in game looks like a concentrated solar plant, but functions as a regular photovoltaic plant, which converts sunlight directly to electricity and stops working at night.
  
  Solar power has three phases of output: 100% power during the day, 40% power when near dawn/dusk, and 0% at night.
  
  Rain and snow will also reduce power output to 25% and 80% respectively, with snow at dusk/dawn reducing power output to 32%. Rain apparently only occurs during the day.

Contrary to popular belief, it's quite possible to prioritize renewable energy over other sources (see later in the guide).

The foreign power connections are used to buy/sell up to 18 MW of electricity (19 MW if overloaded), but they can only be configured to only buy or sell, not both. Typically you will want to buy until you get a power plant operational. Also notable for being the only source that buildings cannot directly source low voltage power from.

These components are used to split, join, and convert power, they generally fall into three types: substations, switches, and transformers. There are mods that combine switches and transformers into a single building.

Used to convert Medium voltage to Low voltage for buildings and to distribute power to buildings. Buildings will automatically connected provided they are within range. This range is a box aligned to the (F1) wire frame grid with the corners 352m, and sides 249m, from the substation:
Buildings can also connect to power plants directly but seemingly prefer drawing power from whatever was placed (not built) first.

Be aware that while substations say they can handle 2.5 MW, the largest medium voltage line can only handle 2.35 MW; its menu can tell you how much load is connected to it and the current amount it shares with other substations nearby.

Substations also have the ability to prioritize power for them over other substations. To prioritize a substation, simply check the box in its window.

Substations now also have multiple connection points for power, but power can only flow into these connections, not out of them, so substations only connected to other substations will not get power.

Used to split or join power of the same voltage level (Medium or High). The game has two vanilla switches: a high voltage switch and a medium voltage switch, each with three connection points. You would use this for branching out from a higher power line to smaller power lines, to switch between power lines and cables, or to join up power sources into a single line.

Used to split or join power of varying voltages, or to convert power between high and medium voltages. The game has one transformer with one high voltage connection points and 6 medium voltage connection points. Typically this would be used to split a high voltage, high power line into several medium voltage, lower power lines for final distribution, but it could also be used to collect the output of 6 windmills and convert it into a single HV line. You can also do a combination of the two, such as 4 windmills and a HV line feeding into 2 MV lines that supply a city.

From left to right: Electric substation, Medium voltage switch, High voltage switch, Power transformer.
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The game has electric vehicle networks that need power and you can supply them with the "Trolleybus trafo" and the "Railroad electric connection." Be careful to connect enough capacity to run the vehicles on the networks. Also keep in mind that the trolley bus trafos will block other connections from supplying power to the network, so build them in parallel to add up capacity or keep your series segments short enough so that vehicles can not accumulate on them and overload the connections.

These are used to connect the power sources to nodes and some buildings like the Aluminium plant. Each cable and power line has a limit on the amount of power that can pass through it, which may be a good or bad thing depending on what you need. Cables and power lines are further divided into high and medium voltages.

Power lines are built above ground while cables are built below (usually, barring bugs) and have these main differences:

• Power lines are much quicker to build.
  
• Power lines are generally much cheaper to buy than cables, but cables become cheaper if you only buy the materials needed for construction and then build it with your own workers (due to the cost of foreign manpower).
  
• Cables can travel across any length of water, while power lines are much more limited.
  
• Cables compete for less surface space, and you can build them deeper underground if needed. You can cross the wires of power lines with no effects too.
  
• Power lines have higher capacity caps, though this can be somewhat mitigated by splitting the power line into two lines/cables.

You can save a lot of material or money by splitting out HV lines into pairs of lower power, HV lines. Just build a couple of HV switches and two lines rather than building a single power line. The 18 MW line in particular should be used sparingly due to the roughly 40% jump in cost from the 15 MW line.

You can also reduce the materials/price on a power line by increasing the tower interval (place roads where every other tower would go), but this is time intensive and the lines will droop, to the point that they may hit the ground and prevent the tower getting built. Another option is to place each new tower as you can place it slightly further than what the game automatically spaces them out.

Basically these are anything that uses power, including most buildings, industry processes, and some vehicles. In other words, it is the whole reason you are making an electric grid in the first place. You might also sell to a foreign power connection.

Some hard coded limits that are not really explained by the game but probably should be.

1) Nodes cannot have more than 19 MW (on average) pass through them, except for priority switches. If you feed two 18 MW lines into a high voltage switch and try to take two 18 MW lines out, you will only get 19 MW or so at most. The missing power will not be transmitted from, nor generated at, the connected power sources.

Priority switches are an exception to this and can have as much power flowing through them as you can input and withdraw.

2) Power will also not transmit through more than 22 nodes (or 19 on versions before v0.9.0.11); however, if you make a substation the 19th node, buildings can still pull low voltage power from it.

3) The junction/switch yards of power plants ARE NOT NODES; you cannot route power through power plants nor foreign connections! If you build a power line to a foreign connection set to sell, and build another line from the foreign connection to supply an area, it will not transmit power nor voltage.

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4)Trolley bus and Tram Trafo connections block the power supply of other trafos. For serial connections, this can result in power shortages for the roads connected only to the ends.

Here a tram and a trolley bus do not have the power needed to move:

The closer trafo is blocking the power supply of the energized trafo on the right, and since it lacks power itself, the tram and trolley bus do not get power. Even if the left trafo did get power, it is possible to overload it by making it supply too many electric vehicles. Both issues can be solved by building a bypass road around the left trafo, which would allow the right trafo to supply the entire network instead of just the right and middle portions.

Sometimes I test this and electric connections for electrified track and metro track do not block the power supply of other electric connections to the network and other times sometimes they do. Just check in a test save before you commit to it.

Certain buildings (depots, surface end stations, and RCOs) do block the power supply though and this is consistent.

To guarantee electric vehicle networks always have enough power for their vehicles, they need to have a power supply capacity of half the sum of the power ratings of all the electric vehicles on the network. Typically much less power will be used, but this much capacity will prevent a brownout due to too many vehicles drawing power. Note that loading and unloading trains may still use extra power, but this isn't supplied by the electric vehicle network power supply.


Each cable/line can only transmit power up to its rating. This can be useful for limiting the power going from a power plant to an area, but it can also lead to situations where an area has a brownout or even a blackout while the power plant is idling at a lower power, and the reason why won't be evident. Be very careful when routing a line with many branches coming off of it.

Using switches you can split the capacity of a power line/cable into two or more cables/lines and then join them back up with another switch. The cables/lines need not have the same power rating (but it looks better when you do). The wattage overlay will show that one line will assume all the load until it's overloaded (dark red) and the other will assume the remainder of the power. There seems to be no downsides to overloading lines.

You might do this because you need to switch to cables to cross a longer stretch of water, and since cables have a lower power rating than a large line does, you will need multiple cables for lines above 12 MW.

You might also do this because you want to save money on construction; two HV switches, an 8 MW line, and a 10 MW line are priced at about a third of the cost of an 18 MW line, and you can start off with just the very affordable 8 MW line and build the 10 MW later when you need it.

Be aware that switches can burn down and that no power is transmitted while burning. This method introduces two more weak points into your electrical system, so use it wisely. There are also significant issues with doing this in a grid with multiple sources, so avoid splitting cables if you are unfamiliar with the Pathing System the game uses for load division.

Because the switching/junction yards of power plants are not nodes and thus cannot transfer power across themselves, you can simply connect multiple grids to the same power plant without connecting all the sources of one grid to all the sources of the other grids.

Power plants seem to prefer splitting their power equally among all the nodes they are directly connected to, up to power line/cable wattage limits.

Actual connection of multiple power sources will be discussed in the next few sections.

When you import power from a foreign power connection, you may end up drawing more power than you allow. This can happen when there is more load on the grid than the limit you set on importing.

This effect is only limited by the line capacity, with the maximum overdraw being limited to about 17 MW. You can also limit it by prioritizing another power source with controlled dispatching (discussed in a later section).

This isn't really a problem if you are using foreign power as the sole source on a grid, but it can be a problem if using it to supplement a power source on a grid that you would prefer to maximize before buying power.

Example:
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This section is for those who want to know exactly how the grid is powered up and loaded and when blackouts and brownouts occur. Actual load division is discussed in the next section. If you are a new player, you might want to just skip this section.

This is my working theory on how the grid generally works, feel free to correct me (bring proof!).

The game simulates electricity by first defining buildings with a voltage rating; Low voltage has 240 V, Medium voltage has 22 KV (22,000 V) and high voltage has 110 KV (110,000 V). When you connect buildings together you have a grid with a capacity for energy equal to the sum of the grid's buildings' voltage ratings. (The electrically minded among us might think of this game's grids as a bunch of capacitors wired in parallel.)

This is the "energy storage" the preamble references, and probably not what you thought of then. Sorry to disappoint you.

When you load a save or start up a power source on an unpowered grid, energy will flow in this order:

1. Power producers create energy and fill themselves with energy up to their maximum voltage (110 KV for HV sources, and 22 KV for MV sources i.e. windmills).
   
2. Next, every building and node in the grid except for substations, the buildings only they connect to, electric vehicle connections, and factories, will simultaneously start accumulating energy/voltage up to 80% of whatever the highest voltage it can accept is (88/110 KV for HV, 17.6/22 KV for MV).
   
3. Then nodes will start accumulating energy with a bias for the nodes farther away from power sources, while loads, substations, electric vehicle connections, and factories will randomly get power (I haven't discovered the pattern yet, I suspect it has to do with its power or voltage rating and if other similar loads are located on the same branch with a longer string. Line capacities probably factor into the logic too.). There seems to be a preference for the end of a string of nodes being filled first, with shorter and closer strings being preferred to fill first.
   
4. Eventually, nodes and buildings all fill up to their maximum voltages and power flow stops.

The size of your grid and the power capacities of its power lines and cables will determine how quickly this process happens. Most simple grids will fill up in seconds at most, while some grids may take a minute or even two.

If all power sources are disconnected or turned off, the entire grid will quickly bleed energy off until it has none, similar to how E+C+L works.


Drawing power from a power supply proceeds in this order:

1. When a load is connected, it fills up with energy to its voltage rating and then starts deleting the energy in its building, which will present as a lowering voltage reading at the building. I think Electric vehicles just transfer their power demand to their road/track network's power connections/trafo; their road/track network is not simulated beyond that.
   
   
2. The game will check the voltages in adjacent nodes and attempt to equalize them at a rate limited by the sum of the power ratings of the lines/cables that connect them. If the power supply exceeds the demand, voltage will become roughly steady.
   
   
3. If power demand exceeds supply, the energy in the building (and its voltage reading) will continue to decline until it reaches 80% of the building's rating, upon which the power draw will be throttled to whatever the grid can spare it. This is the point you might see brownouts and power warnings issued.
   
   The method the game uses to decide what amount of power to throttle power demand down to is unclear to me, but it seems to rely on these factors:
   • The power rating of the least limiting path to a power source determines the maximum for the throttled power. Split lines (a line split at a node into multiple lines, then rejoined a later node into one line again) will not limit the throttled power to either of their lines' power limits, but to their sum instead. Normally this won't matter, unless you deliberately or accidentally place too many loads on a power line or node.
     
   • If multiple buildings connected to a node are overloading their power supply, the power supply will be split evenly between them unless one or more of their demands are met, or unless their voltage ratings are different, in which case the lower voltage seems to gets priority, unless the lower voltage building enters a blackout, or unless if between nodes influence this somehow, (the unless train never ends!).
     
   • If multiple grids connected to the same power plant have overloaded buildings, the power plant may split its power evenly according to the loads or in relation to the power limits of the lines leading to them.
     
   • Probably some other stuff I'm missing.
   
   
4. If the building's full power draw would be more than twice the currently throttled power draw, the building's voltage will fall to zero and you'll have a blackout or the voltage may cycle on and off rave style.

This process is why heavily loaded buildings tend to stabilize at 80% of their maximum voltage rating (88/110 KV for HV & 17.6/22 KV for MV) before plummeting towards zero volts when enough loading is added.

I suspect that this is one of the potential causes for the wattage readings of connected power plants swinging several MWs of power every second or so; the power draw from the grid should be constant, but the varying voltage levels may pull energy from other nodes and effectively unbalance the grid, causing power plants to "see" a dip or surge in voltage and thus ramp up or down generation to match it.

Another big question is whether nodes at 80% voltage have their energy refilled solely from connected nodes and sources, or if it refills similar to the startup sequence where it pulls energy directly from the power sources until at 80%. If so, this could also cause the wattage instability of a single power plant on a grid experiencing several MW swings every couple seconds or so.

There are exceptions, as discussed later, but generally:

• Energy (read as voltage) is stored and consumed in every electrified building.
  
• Energy is pulled to buildings from higher voltage nodes at a rate limited by the power lines' rating.
  
• Loads will use up to 100% of their building's power rating until its voltage reaches 80%.
  
• At 80% voltage, a building's power draw will be throttled down, until the building surpasses 80% voltage again.
  
• A building's energy (and thus voltage) falls to zero when its full power demand is more than double the throttled power draw.
  
• Avoid having buildings in a grid below 90% voltage to promote stability.

With all that out of the way, we can finally discuss how a grid's power load is shared by connected power sources.

The commonly given thumb rule is that the loading of a grid is equally shared with each of its power sources, while power source priority is based on the number of nodes between the load and the grid's power sources, but that is not the case at all.

What really happens is that the game will find paths from each load to all the power sources on the grid and from there, it decides a behavior for each path. These behaviors will be discussed in greater detail in later sections, but for now you should know this about them:

• Node Prioritization - Nodes with multiple, directly-connected (no nodes in between) power sources will prefer to load one of the sources before the others.
  
  
• Ghost Power - A condition where energy is circulating between nodes. Generally undesirable as it reduces the node's transmission limit from 19 MW, but it is not generated at a power source. There must be a "potential" for Ghost power to occur, which depends on the load splitting process.
  
  
• Ghost Gates - A condition where a connected power source will not send power to a load, even if "operating without issues" and being well unloaded (with an exception). Also generally undesirable, but there are a couple of special cases where it can be useful.

I highly doubt that the game does this method exactly (and deliberately causes Ghost Power), but the results appear the same, so the method below can be used to predict the behavior of your grid designs.

When a load is connected to a powered grid:

1. The game will look for all of the nodes in a grid that are directly connected to power sources and compile a list of paths between these nodes and the load (paths with over 19 nodes are ignored).
   
   
2. The path with the fewest number of nodes in it becomes the base line for comparison. For brevity, this path will be referred to as the "base path." The base path gets one "share" of the loading.
   
   
3. The game will determine each path's behavior by looking at the extra number of nodes it has compared to the base path.
   If the difference in nodes is:
   • Zero - Then the path will get one "share" of the loading.
     Ghost Power may occur, but the potential for it is very low, possibly even nonexistent.
     
     
   • One - Then the path will get one "share" of the loading, but there is a very high potential for Ghost Power to occur.
     
     
   • Two or more - Then the path will not receive a share of the loading and a Ghost Gate will occur.
   
   
4. Loading is then split equally amongst the paths with a share. Since most loads and sources on a grid are connected by the same power lines and cables, you will see higher wattage where the paths overlap. If a limit is reached (power source generating capacity, power line/cable wattage rating, or the 19 MW node limit with or without Ghost Power), the remaining load is equally distributed amongst the paths that have a share until they too hit a limit or all loading is distributed.
   
   Paths with Ghost Gates will never accept loading from a load until their designation changes. Other loads may or may not find a path through them acceptable (depends on the node numbers for that load's paths).

Here is an example:

In game comparison; Node B is modded 4 HV connection point Switch:

Same setup, but with a 4 MW line on the path "Load-b-B-C" to show unmitigated Ghost Power; note that node C has almost twice as much power flowing through it (7.281 MW) as the 4 MW line can supply:
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If you connect all your loads so that all of their paths must route through the same node to all the sources, you can treat all of the loads as a single load from that node to make analysis easier.

In the last picture, you may have spotted that the power plant on the right (power source 3) is producing about twice as much power as the middle power plant (power source 2). This is because there are two nodes that are directly powered by the right power plant and because each directly powered node gets a share of loading. Since there is a total of three shares on this grid for the load of ~18 MW (a Foreign Connection set to export 18 MW), each share is ~6 MW (1/3 of 18 MW), and thus the right power plant will supply 2 shares, or ~12 MW, while the middle plant supplies only one share for 6 MW.

The first picture shows a greater imbalance, but that is due to Grid instability where the sources on a grid will swing 4, 5, or more megawatts; on average, the middle plant supplies around 6 MW and the right plant supplies around 12 MW.

Providing more paths to a power source is one of the three actual ways of prioritizing sources of power, but the important thing to remember is that these shares are assigned to the nodes which are directly connected to power sources and NOT to the actual power sources. This is because of the Node Prioritization Behavior, which is discussed in the next section.

Node Prioritization is a phenomenon that occurs at a node with multiple power sources directly connected to it (i.e. the only thing between the power source and the node, is a power line/cable), where one source will receive all the node's loading up to its capacity or its connecting power line/cable's rating before the next source is loaded, and so on.

If you were wondering why the power source was not included in the paths defined above, it is because of the way the game handles power sources that are directly connected to the same node. For the purposes of load division, whenever two or more power sources are directly connected to the same node, the game will interpret these power sources as being one source; so to prevent confusion, paths are defined to end at directly connected nodes instead of sources.

There are three aspects unique to Node Prioritization:

• Stable Power Production - Fluctuations in power generation are minimized.
  
• Sequential Loading - The majority of loading will go to one of the node's power sources before the others.
  
• Type Prioritization - Loading will be prioritized along categories of power sources.

Typically when multiple power sources are on a grid with a constant power demand such as a foreign power connection set to export, their power readings will be fluctuating quite a lot, perhaps even 6+ MW. When you use Node Prioritization, the sources at the node will be a lot more stable and swing up and down by a smaller amount, perhaps 1 or 2 MW.

This will not fix transients caused by loads starting up or securing though.

Whenever loading is assigned directly to a node with multiple, directly-connected sources, the game will load whichever source was prioritized up to its capacity before giving more loading to the next prioritized source, which will only assume ~0.5 to 1 MW of the loading until then. Subsequent power sources will be loaded once their predecessors assume loading up to their generating limit, and this process will continue until all loading is supplied, all of the node's power sources are maxed out, or the node reaches its 19 MW limit.

For Node Prioritization only, power sources are prioritized along these two rules:

1) For only the power sources directly connected to a node (i.e. the only thing between them and the node is a power line/cable), will those power sources be reliably prioritized in the following order:

1. Renewable power sources (wind and solar)
   
2. Fueled power plants (gas, nuclear, & coal)
   
3. Foreign power connections set to import

(I suspect modded power plants like hydro or modded power plants with fuels like wood, coal ore, or fuel fall in this order, but you should test it before relying on it!)

2) If you connect two or more power sources in the same category, then the power source that was placed first (build order doesn't matter) will be loaded to its capacity or to the capacity of its power line/cable, then the next built source will be loaded as such, and so on. Even if a power source burns down, the order will not change after rebuilding so long as you did not delete the building.

So if you want to prioritize a nuclear power plant over the coal and gas plants in your republic, your options are to either place (but not build) the nuclear power plant before placing the gas/coal plants you plan on starting with, or deleting and placing again the coal/gas plants you built earlier after placing the nuclear power plant. I recommend planning ahead comrade.

Power Source Priority, along with Sequential Loading, is the second of the three actual ways of prioritizing sources of power, but remember that it is limited to the node that the power sources directly connect to.

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Another issue is that Node Prioritization is limited to 19 MW because of the 19 MW maximum limit for nodes. This can make prioritizing a type of power source harder because many power sources can easily exceed 19 MW, but you can link a source to multiple grids to get around this issue as seen in the next image:

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The third and final limitation is that since all power sources need to be connected to the same node, the number of sources that can be directly handled by a node is limited to the number of connection points it has. This is especially a problem for the windmills because they have a low power-to-connection-point ratio and thus a lot of them need to be connected to have a decent summed power rating, but there are ways to make it work. Mods help a lot (there are some recommended at the end of the guide).

Here are a couple examples of prioritizing solar power over coal and nuclear power by using Node Prioritization. Note the differing solar outputs per the light level reading at the top of the gui:

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Ghost Power is a generally undesirable phenomenon where power circulates between two nodes on a HV and/or MV grid where two or more power sources are combined. This results in a reduction of the combining node's maximum power transfer limit from 19 MW to as little as 9 MW, which may then limit power transfer to loads beyond it. As a sop for the player, the low power supply will always be transmitted through the nodes with the Ghost Power.

Ironically, this 'bug' somewhat resembles a real life aspect of the grid known as 'reactive power,' which helps to stabilize the voltage of a grid during transients with the downside being a reduction in 'True Power' i.e. the wattage we care about.

You can tell Ghost Power is present when:

• A switch or transformer has a wattage reading higher than the connected power sources (or the sum of their connecting power lines/cables) can provide it.
  
• When downstream power readings (closer to loads) are significantly lower than upstream power readings.
  
• You might also see voltage cycling up and down by a few hundred to a thousand volts (you will probably need to use the voltage overlay; meters aren't precise enough to see it.)

Ghost Power happens under the following conditions:

1. There is a potential for it, as denoted by the pathing system.
   
2. The path has a comparatively low power supply compared to the sources of the other paths it overlaps with. Possible causes include:
   • A low generation capacity like windmills.
     
   • A low wattage rated power line/cable.
     
   • An overloaded split power source.
3. The power lines/cables connecting the two nodes are rated for a wattage higher than the low power supply.

The severity of Ghost Power is limited by a couple factors:

• Average Ghost Power is limited to the capacity of the line connecting the nodes mentioned above.
  
• More Ghost Power will occur with a higher disparity of available power source supply. Ghost Power really starts to happen when one source can supply twice the power or more as the low power source can.

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There a few options to deal with ghost power:

• Add/remove nodes on the grid to force the pathing system to remove the potential for Ghost Power.
  
• Build a power line/cable with a lower wattage rating between the nodes experiencing Ghost Power. This will limit Ghost Power while the actual power is transmitted.
  
• Increase the power supply's capacity (more powerful source, better transmission line so the source isn't limited, etc.)
  
• Don't fix it. If you don't need most of the 19 MW of the node's transmission capacity, then you may not need to care (as can be seen in the second MV example image where line capacity is maximized for the power plant). Ghost Power is not generated at a power source and so doesn't cost you resources, and the actual power from the lower power source is always transmitted before Ghost Power.

Medium voltage Ghost power examples:

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High voltage Ghost power examples:

As a result of the load sharing system, some power sources will just not supply power to a load if the load has a path to another active power source with two fewer nodes. Enough loads connected in this fashion gives the appearance of a power source refusing to supply any power as if something were separating them (hence the term "Ghost Gate").

The major issue with Ghost Gates is that this is the one time where if a power limit is reached, the game will not reassign the excess loading to other power sources and the loads will experience a brownout. This can lead to situations where you might have a large amount of generating capacity on a grid, but only a small amount of it may be usable.

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It must be emphasized that Ghost Gates occur on an individual load basis. Some loads may not be getting power from certain sources, but there may not be an explicit 0 MW reading indicative of a Ghost Gate.

Generally power will not be transmitted past a Ghost Gate, but small spikes of power may leak through at a frequency dependent on the power supply (source 1 in the image above) on the load side of the Ghost Gate with higher frequencies at very low powers. The power spikes can be stopped at a certain load side power, but this seems to depend on the wattage rating of the power line crossing the Ghost Gate. A few Ghost Gate power lines/cable ratings and their respective load side power minimums to prevent the Ghost Gate from spiking are listed below:

• 4 MW - at least 0.5 MW
  
• 6 MW - at least 0.7 MW
  
• 8 MW - at least 0.9 MW

I haven't really tested this aspect of Ghost Gates, so these numbers may be inaccurate, but it would appear that every MW of line/cable rating may require an additional 0.1 Load side power to prevent the spikes.

An interesting fact about the game's load sharing system is that non-working power sources are not considered when considering paths; a clever player can thus set up a "backup" power source for a set of loads by ensuring the path from the loads to the backup source is two or more nodes longer than the loads' path is to the primary power source. If the primary source stops working due to a fire or a lack of workers or fuel, the backup source will automatically pick up all of its loading without an interruption in power.

Keep in mind that primary and backup sources cannot supply power at the same time because the Ghost Gate will only allow power to pass through it when there is zero power being produced by the primary source. Brownouts, which occur when the primary source(s) cannot meet the grid's demand but are still making power, are not going to be shored up by the backup sources because the loading system still sees the load's path to the backup source as two or more nodes longer than the closer and technically "functioning" primary power source.

In short, a player can design a grid where a backup power source automatically assumes the loading of a primary power source when the primary source completely stops working.

If the power plant stopped working, the windmills would start transmitting power to the load.

Factors that determine why the power readings at your power plants jump all over the place are explained here.

Electricity usage appears to be higher on the Fast speed setting. This is probably due to the game taking "longer" intervals between checking the state of each building and the faster speed is not fully accounted for. Electricity usage at normal speed seems to be around 93% of the fast speed usage. Fast speed also makes the grid less stable, so if you are hunting a power issue, you may need to cycle between speeds to catch it.

Normally a grid will have some fluctuation in power which you can see at your power plants, but there are numerous factors that can make it much worse.

• Connecting multiple power sources to one grid, but not directly connecting them all to the same node (Node Prioritization). This gets worse with more complex grids.
  
• Overloading the grid - This can cause wattage to cycle between full power and throttled power at 80% voltage. Planning and using proper power line/cable ratings will determine if this happens frequently.
  
• Transients - Loads that do not run constantly can disrupt the stability of the grid.
  
• Renewable power - By its nature it is unstable, though solar isn't too bad.
  
• Day/Night Cycle - Most buildings will consume extra power at night.
  
• Seasons - Some buildings only use power during certain seasons. Most of these buildings do not consume much power though, but mods may change that for you.

Theoretically, there is no real issue with having unstable grids in this game, but practically speaking, finding issues on an unstable grid will be a lot harder with readings jumping all over the place. You might have power issues at certain buildings but the swinging power readings may mask some of the indications you would use to find the issue.

The biggest swings in power will be usually be caused by loads that do not run constantly.
There is a lot of stuff that can run intermittently, but these are the biggest offenders:

• Vehicle loading stations - Some stations offer a bonus to loading/unloading speed at the cost of more power usage, which only occurs during loading or unloading. Many of these stations can reach one or more megawatts of power, and a few can even reach 2 or 3 MW.
  
• Electric trains - Even a single electric locomotive can easy consume one to three MW when accelerating from a stop, but only for a short time. A set of electric locomotives can result in large swings in power if they are stopping frequently, so be careful with their power supplies.
  
• Large Industries - The aluminium smelter, aircraft factory and many other industries consume respectable amounts of power, which will stop and start depending on resources and storage availability.
  
• Conveyor engines, pipeline pumps, and water pumps - Each of these consume a somewhat small amount of power when in use, but chaining them together can add up their power draw into a megawatts or two. If they are not working continuously, then their power draw will spike each time they move a packet of material.

If you have grids that randomly have power issues, yet when you investigate you find everything seems to be working fine, check to see if there are any of the above loads that may be overloading your grids.

When night falls, citizens will turn on lights everywhere in the republic, which will result in an increased power draw from every building that citizens interact with. Generally each building may experience 20 kW of extra loading, while residential buildings will about double in power. If you are paranoid about having power issues at night, the max circuit breaker rating and the maximum daily MWh the games lists for each building will account for this, but you may find yourself overbuilding your grids (keep in mind that the circuit breaker rating only accounts for your current settings).

Another aspect about the night are the roads with street lamps. Street lamps will use roughly ~0.02kW per meter or 0.4 kW to 0.417 kW per street light. To get the roads to actually light up, I think part of each road segment must be within the box range of an electrical substation, but some finagling may be required.

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Buildings whose functions are dependent on the temperature will draw reduced power or even none at all outside of their functioning temperature range. Normally this is isn't an issue because such buildings typically consume little power (on the order of kilowatts), but you may experience some changes in power if you separate the summer buildings (outdoors sports, attractions, etc.) and the winter buildings (heating plants/pumps, indoor sports which suddenly see more people, etc.) into different grids. Normally not a problem though.

For your Exam comrade. Yes, you will be tested.

• MWh = MW x time; typically this will be MWh per day, so time will usually be 60 "hours" per day.
  
• MW = MWh / time.
  
• MW (or MWh) = kW (or kWh) x 1000; that is, 1 MW = 1000 kW & 1 MWh = 1000 kWh.
  
• kW = MW / 1000; that is, 1 kW = 1/1000th of a MW.
  
• KV = 1000 * V; that is, 1 KV = 1000 volts.

You can press E+C+L to reset the energy levels in all buildings to zero (except producers, who will just dip a bit), but the game cannot be paused for it to work.

• Maximum of 19 MW of power per node.
  
• Maximum of 22 nodes (or 19 on versions before v0.9.0.11).
  The 22th node may be a substation (low voltage connections don't count).
  
• Power plants and foreign connections aren't nodes and power will not flow through them, only from them.
  
• Trafos for trolley buses and trams and electric connections for trains only add their transmission capacities to the road/track they directly connect to; they will block other connections from supplying the track/road on their other side.

There are exceptions, but generally:

• Energy (read as voltage) is stored and consumed in every electrified building.
  
• Energy is pulled to buildings from higher voltage nodes at a rate limited by the power lines' rating.
  
• Loads will use up to 100% of their building's power rating until its voltage reaches 80%.
  
• At 80% voltage, a building's power draw will be throttled down, until the building surpasses 80% voltage again.
  
• A building's energy (and thus voltage) falls to zero when its full power demand is more than double the throttled power draw.
  
• Avoid having buildings in a grid below 90% voltage to promote stability.

How the game determines how loading is split.

Each load on a grid compares the paths from itself to nodes connected directly to one or more power sources. The path(s) with the fewest nodes are each assigned an equal "share" of the load, while paths with an extra node get a "share" of the loading as well as a potential for Ghost Power, and finally, paths with two or more extra nodes will not be assigned any loading at all (Ghost Gate).

A phenomenon where sources will be prioritized for loading assigned to a common node.

Requirements:

• Only prioritizes sources directly connected to the same node.
  
• Only affects loading assigned to the directly connected node.

Power Priority Order:

1. Renewable Power
   
2. Fueled plants (that consume a resource like coal or oil.)
   
3. Imported foreign power.
   Sources in the same category are then prioritized by time of placement (not the time they were actually built).

An undesirable condition where power circulates between two nodes. Occurs when:

1. There is a potential for it, as denoted by the pathing system.
   
2. The path has a comparatively low power supply compared to the sources of the other paths it overlaps with. Possible causes include:
   • A low generation capacity like windmills.
     
   • A low wattage rated power line/cable.
     
   • An overloaded split power source.
3. The power lines/cables connecting the two nodes are rated for a wattage higher than the low power supply.

Ghost Power is not generated at a power source.

A condition where power plants will not provide power beyond a certain node.

This occurs solely when the Pathing System says it does. A load may draw power through another load's Ghost Gate.

• Pathing System - If you can avoid Ghost Power/Gates, there are a couple ways to do it:
  • Give a large source more nodes to directly connect to so that it has more load shares to supply than other sources (i.e. A power plant with 5 nodes on a grid will have five shares, while another source with only one node will have 1 share. If no other viable paths exist for the load, the power plant would carry five sixths of the loading, provided no limits interfere).
    
  • For wind power, you would do the opposite; have a main power plant directly connect to only one node on the grid while there are many other nodes that directly connect to wind mills. This way the power plant would supply a tiny fraction of the load unless the wind stills and the windmills' outputs dropped.
• Node Prioritization - This method offers the best guarantee of prioritizing a load, but it can be difficult to integrate into a larger grid; however, you might combine this with the pathing system.
  
• Ghost Gates - If you want to have a power source backup another source so that if it stops generating power for whatever reason (fire, no fuel or workers, accidentally deleted something, etc.) but you don't want the backup to be normally sharing power, then you can use a Ghost Gate to separate them.
  
  Be aware that a Ghost Gated Backup will only work for blackouts, not brownouts. The main source(s) must be completely offline for this to work.

This is a procedure for quickly finding where the break in a power line is without having to look for wires between each tower/pole along the entire line. If you're one of those degenerates that stack or overlap your power lines then this may not be very useful to you.

With the game not paused, enable the voltage overlay; this will highlight in green the power lines and cables that are both a) connected at both ends to a building and b) have power:

Lines without power or that are not connected at both ends to a buildings will not be highlighted; these are the lines you troubleshoot.

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Then select the "cancel wire tool," click and hold the mouse button at an end you are sure is connected to a building with power (or is closer to a power source you expect to supply power), and then drag the mouse along the power line to highlight it in red:

You can move it quickly to any point on the power line and the entire line up to that point should be highlighted in red. This lets you "clear" an entire power line quickly without having to look for wires between each tower.
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If you get too far from the end of the power line segment, the red highlight will disappear:

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The break is likely at this point, but you can confirm it by trying to build a power line of the same wattage limit from it. If the white sphere mouse cursor snaps to where the point where the red highlight ends, then that is where the break is.

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If the mouse cursor doesn't snap to that point, then the power line is connected to either an underground cable (obvious) or to another power line segment (rare, but possible), and the break is further down the line.

In either case, let go of the left mouse button when the power line is not highlighted in red (unless you want to delete the power line), and click, hold, and drag from this connection point down the next segment to try and find the break.

This section has some example grids/layouts that have multiple power sources connected. Readers can use them as examples to learn from, while less aspiring planners can just use them in place of learning the system.

A major concept for these designs is that you can just treat all the loads on a grid as a single load if you route the wires/cables carrying their power through a single point, which makes planning behaviors a lot easier. I typically label these points with an upside down triangle.

With this setup, each power plant will supply a grid and export power, but it will not supply the other power plant's grid/FPC pair unless the other power plant stops producing power.

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Substations in grids 1 and 2 have the option "Higher priority" checked to prioritize them over the foreign power connections. "Grid 1" and "Grid 2" are not connected to other power sources, but they can be connected to loads in any fashion so long as they do not exceed the basic limits (19 MW per node, 22 nodes in a load's path length, etc.).


There are a few features with this design:

• Each power plant has been set up as a backup source for the other by causing 'Ghost Gates.' If one power plant goes offline (fire, no fuel, no workers), the other one will automatically start supplying power to both grids and both foreign power connections. Since domestic substations have priority, you never need to worry about power interruptions unless both power plants fail.
  
  Note that this safety will only be enacted if a power plant completely stops supplying power. A power plant that is barely producing power will not be shored up by the other one (such as when only a few workers are present during high loading). This is a limitation of Ghost Gates.
  
  
• The foreign power connections can also be swapped from exporting power to importing power if their paired power plant cannot provide enough power to make up for the other power plant failing. Due to 'node prioritization,' the foreign power connections will also not import much, if any, power unless their paired power plant is fully loaded or offline.
  
  
• The foreign power connections are also "air-gapped" from one another, so you do not need to worry about wasting money by importing power at one foreign power connection only for it to be exported at the other foreign power connection.

Here is one way to prioritize wind power in meaningful amounts.

XFMR is short for transformer.

There are 5 base paths in this setup, which results in loading being split into 5 shares. The power plant only gets one share and thus only 20% of the loading, while the windmills get 80% from four shares. Typically the loading allotted to the windmills will be well above what they can supply, so they will always be fully loaded while the power plant supplies the rest.

You can expand this design but this will require extra nodes; both to join the windmills together and to pad the power plant's path to maintain an equal number of nodes. Mod switches/transformers with more connections are useful for reducing the number of switches, but keep in mind the number of shares you will be splitting the loading into (you want to minimize the power plant's share).


Here is an easy way to prioritize solar power during the day and use coal or oil power at night.


The solar plants and the coal/oil power plant are directly connected to the same HV switches, which causes the node prioritization behavior to occur. This results in solar power always being fully loaded before the coal/oil power plant.

This setup will export any excess power and only import power as needed. A small amount of power will always be drawn from the import FPC, but typically less than 0.5 MW, which should be less than a few rubles a day (consider it the fee for providing you with emergency generating capacity on demand).

Some recommended mods for those with a good understanding of the game's electrical simulation and want some more flexibility for their grid designs.

If you are new to the game, I highly recommend not using these mods until you get some experience as these mods bypass some of the protections inherent in the vanilla buildings.


https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2309772553
This mod pack expands nicely on the vanilla switches and transformers.


https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2301631525
This mod pack has a lot of switches suited for concentrating wind power for node prioritization.


https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2567838366
This mod pack is good for prioritizing wind power via the pathing system thanks to the small 2 MV connection point "switches." There are also switches suitable for concentrating wind power for node prioritization. All of these buildings also look pretty realistic too.


https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2012239920
This mod is safer for beginners, and offers some nice switches/transformers.

I have made some other guides that I like to think are pretty useful.

Guide on Personal Cars :
- Covers how to use personal cars and some general info on road mechanics.
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2840936507

Guide to Trains:
- Explains the mechanics of trains, signals, metros, and more in detail.
- Also covers some advanced uses of trains, such as using RDOs as rail yards.
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2965408165

Ship, Aircraft, and Container Stats
- Lists of stats for various vehicles, including speed, capacity, fuel economy, takeoff distance, etc.
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3146397536

Water Management:
- Pretty much everything you'd want to know about water and sewage.
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2973142931