Factorio – How Much Energy Does a Solar Panel Produce Per Day?

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A solar panel produces up to 60kW, but only during part of the day. How much energy does a solar panel produce each day in Joules?

Best Answer

Without doing a whole lot of math myself, the Wiki breaks it down and summarizes it in comparison to basic accumulators:

The Calculation:

Accumulators / Solar_panels =
    (day + dawn) * (night + dawn * (day + dawn) / game_day) / game_day
    * Solar_power / Accumulator_energy

which, given the default time lengths of: day = 17500/60 s; dawn or dusk = 5000/60 s; night = 2500/60 s, and the default: Solar_power = 60 kW; Accumulator_energy = 5 MJ = 5000 kJ, gives the optimal ratio of 0.84 accumulators per solar panel.

That means if you take .84 * 5,000 = 4,200 kilo joules. You should be able to test this if you isolate an accumulator and a solar panel from the rest of the power grid, and watch the accumulator's Joule level increase as soon as the accumulator starts to get charged up by the solar panel. It should equal ~4.2MJ when the solar reaches 0kW again.

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