In version 0.15.0, Steam Turbines were added to the game. They are significantly more powerful than steam engines (1 steam turbine is equal to ~10.5 steam engines), but I'm finding it difficult to keep them running at 100% power.
To even reach the maximum available performance for steam turbines, you need to use nuclear power and heat exchangers. The heat exchangers use heat produced by the nuclear reactor to make steam at very high temperatures. From my observations, the exchangers need to be running at at least 500 °C to produce steam (the maximum is 1000 °C). Anything lower than 500 °C, and the turbines will not run. I've also noticed two things with nuclear power:
- The farther the heat exchanger is from the reactor, the cooler the temperatures will be.
- Tampering with the heat pipes will case the temperatures to change temporarily as the heat attempts to catch up.
I'm able to get my turbines running at maximum efficiency when there is enough power on my grid already, but I am expanding my factory, and my expansion is starting to consume too much power. When this happens, the turbines fail to continue to run at maximum. They appear to consume their steam faster for some reason, and end up only being able to perform at about 60% their potential.
My setup includes two nuclear reactors that are connected with heat pipes and are always running to produce enough heat. Right now, the exchangers are in the 600+ °C range so I should have enough heat to be making steam.
How can I always keep them running at maximum power? Better yet, steam turbines can be linked together like steam engines, but doing this almost always ruins the performance of the turbines. How can I do this as well?
Best Answer
It's hard to say where the bottleneck is because you haven't shown any of the mouseover info displays for the turbines, exchangers, and pipes, but here's some general advice:
First of all, your setup is missing the bonus for multiple nuclear reactors. You must place them exactly adjacent to each other, with no intervening heat pipes. Once you do so, you will have exactly twice as much heat produced.
Try to avoid cross-connecting heat pipes — each one should be a direct line from reactor to heat exchanger, and the only time three or more pipes should meet is if you're branching to feed more than one heat exchanger. (I'm not sure how much this will help, and it might change in the future, but my understanding is that in current versions heat pipes work pretty much like fluid pipes.)
Simularly, make sure that the water pipelines are not cross-connected — for each offshore pump there should be a group of exchangers using its water with no overlap with other pumps. If there are cross-connections then water may flow in useless directions, reducing flow in the useful direction.
In general, not enough offshore pumps can mean not enough water, but you don't have enough heat exchangers to need more than one, here. But you didn't show how many you have, so maybe adding a second one if you have only one might help if your water pipeline is not too efficient.
This just means that you don't have enough steam in that pipe to feed that many turbines. The total output will always be the same or better — there are no losses in a heat/steam system, only flow bottlenecks.