Power line transmission losses over multiple cities

[monkeywater 910]

I am having some weird issues with my power grid.  I initially had 4 contiguous cities, with a power plant in one at the end and failed at bringing power from one end to the other.

 

So I made a chain of 6 small test cities, I was able to get power 5 cities away and failed at the 6th, regardless of how many timed I opened each city to try to buy/sell power to the neighbor.

 

I noticed something weird, the sheer magnitude of power consumed by my string of test cities.  In total there was 20k population and 10k industry and maybe 5k commercial.

Yet the power draw on the power generating city was 86% of 1 hydrogen plant ant 4 coal plants.  This seemed excessive so I made another, single city .

 

This city, with no power transmission had 75k population and 25k industrial.  Yet only used 20% of a single hydrogen power plant.

 

So there appears to be a power loss transmission penalty when connecting many cities.

 

Does anyone know the math behind this? is it based on number of cities connected or transmission distance?

 

Is there a theoretical max number of cities that power can be transmitted over before it becomes impossible?  So far I have 2 data points, each reaching a hard stop and not allowing power to be transmitted.

[Tysons4 68]

It depends on what you have built in the city and if it already has a power source. I usually start our as independent cities but as i fill the region i like to start focusing utilities into areas and if you buy in sell in a chain and put a lot of demand for power on a city it will then demand a surplus when you load it. that's when you know you have a regional power source. now as cities age i can remove the old dirty power and shift to wind power and still get a lot of power from a regional power network.

 

 

 

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I cannot contribute anything substantial to this because I don't use these mechanics very often and it's been a long time since I last played the game, but I'd like to mention that BATs can screw up your stats considerably. So ideally, you'd do your research using only Maxis stuff. [You're probably already doing this - if so, please disregard my post].

[monkeywater 910]

Yup, I am using BATS, but I made sure none have crazy power requirements.  The composition of the large city, vs linked cities has very similar industry.

[twalsh102 1,601]

@monkeywater, there is no simulation exemplar dealing with either neighbor deals (in general) or power (specifically).  So if there are any limitations or penalties, they are hard-baked into the game (or possibly buried in some LUA script someplace), and thus could only be figured out by inference (or translation / decryption of the LUA script if one could be found).  While I have seen several discussions about creating "power grids" such as what you are trying to do, I don't recall seeing anything definitive about maximum length of a string of cities powered by a single source.

It sound like there is a major difference between what you are attempting and what @Tysons4 did, in that it sounds like he either provided power initially for every city, or had several power "nodes."  This then allowed him to build out his power "grid" safely, and eventually decommission unnecessary power plants,  You, on the other hand, are trying to build your "grid" as you expand (possibly faster than your limited number of plants can handle).

Here's a couple of suggestions: 

1.  Instead of trying to continuously expand outward as fast as you can, spend more time developing those cities closer to the power source.  As those cities fill up, and their power needs stabilize, it becomes easier to create neighbor deals that focus on power needs of cities farther down the line.  I fear that whatever power surplus is gained through increased neighbor deals farther up the line, by the time it all trickles down to city 5, there is insufficient surplus to create the minimum neighbor deal with city 6.  What power surplus does city 5 have when you try to created the neighbor deal with city 6?

2.  If you can't create a neighbor deal for power between city 5 and city 6, plop  a smaller, clean power source in city 6.  This relieves any stress on your original power plants while trying to cope with the power needs of the first 5 cities.  Like in suggestion 1, eventually the power needs of the first 5 cities will stabilize, and you will eventually be able to decommission power stations in cities further down the "grid."

[rsc204 21,808]

I would caution against the assumption that something must be broken. As others have pointed out, such chains have been used for a long time by many users, its far more likely one bad apple (poorly modded lot) is the cause of your woes. Finding it can be a PITA, but I've seen such issues with Power/Water/Pollution caused by just one incorrect value. As such, it's unlikely any error here was intended by the author of a building, so unless you've grown every building in your plugins folder (or checked the modding of them), that would be the first place I'd be looking.

A good solution is to load a city and slowly bulldoze sections of it, keeping an eye on power consumption. If it suddenly drops, you've found the target area to look for problems. Exit without saving, reload and bulldoze this area one building at a time, checking the power demand as you do so. This is a relatively painless way of finding such problems