hydroelectric dam, dam power unit, water pressure turbine
a structure that generates power based on the head difference (perhaps flow too, if that's measurable)
Comments: 45
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12 Oct, '21
Thaina Yu MergedHighlighted comment
https://timberborn.featureupvote.com/suggestions/215305/hydroelectric-dam -
17 Sep, '21
Thaina YuI think maybe we could have waterfall waterwheel. A row of small waterwheel on horizontal beam that can be build like suspension bridge. It would have anchor on one side. Which generate power from waterfall contact on it. So it could could stack over itself
So we don't need to calculate head difference, just add a number of stack we build directly
Might be able to build on the wall. And maybe have it as a special building for the new faction -
17 Sep, '21
WyldCould consider having the individual dam pieces integrated with a small waterwheel in the top where the water spills out. They could generate a small/medium amount of power depending on which map you are using and where they are placed in the river. EX: on a flat area of the river just to help keep some water available small amt of power generated due to small drop, on a ledge generate a larger amt of power due to larger drop to get into the rest of the river.
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19 Sep, '21
Michael T Crandell MergedI suggest that you put in a hydro dam to make power, possibly for a new water-based faction.
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20 Sep, '21
pmduda System"Powerification!" (suggested by MinkuSama on 2021-09-17), including upvotes (2) and comments (1), was merged into this suggestion.
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20 Sep, '21
pmduda System"More Dams" (suggested by Michael T Crandell on 2021-09-19), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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24 Sep, '21
SeizanA vertical water wheel (turbine basically) would be really great! Probably a bit tricky to place as it had to be under a dam/flood gate. Would let you generate power at will with flood gates. That be really cool :O
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24 Sep, '21
TomIf the water pumps suggestion is implemented, this could be a method to store energy like the irl Pumped hydro storage)
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27 Sep, '21
Brandon Hicksthis is already possible with waterwheels using levees and stacked floodgates
like so, as seen from the side:
w_|
|o|
|_____w___
w=water
_=water level
|=floodgate with levee surrounding body of water
o=waterwheel -
11 Oct, '21
Ryan MergedI think it would be really cool and thematic to have pump storage batteries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jx_bJgIFhI&ab_channel=TomScott
Here's a video of how it works, but TLDR it is a "battery" comprised of two lakes, one higher than the other; when it gets excess power, it uses it to pump the water to the higher lake, when it's expending power, it releases some water into the lower lake -
20 Oct, '21
Harrison FjordSeems like these people don't understand how a hydroelectric dam works.
We literally have all the building blocks right now, except the actual generator that creates electricity from mechanical torque. And why would we need electricity when there are no electric buildings that consume it?
Just use the water wheel as a turbine and use the mechanical energy directly in the factories.
I'm sorry about the lecture, but I wish there was a downvote button. -
25 Nov, '21
Quantumyou can already create a hydro electric dam setup in game, a hydro electric dam is essentially just. a water storage up high, some form of flow restriction to force more water in then out (more water in then out means the dam will fill up. more water out then in means it will empty etc)
https://i.imgur.com/eAxgClc.jpg
here is a picture of my current setup. blue is where I store water as potential energy, green area is where I turn that potential energy into electricity, and red is where I actually pump water from to drink.
here is an image of a flow restriction setup on experimental to help slow down how much water leaves my reservoir. a setup like this is only nessacery when your reservoir is higher then 4 blocks tall
https://i.imgur.com/vK2zdC2.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/T0FG9nC.jpg -
25 Nov, '21
Quantumjust some quick noted about the experimental water wheel flow restriction. I have found that the flow restriction is not created by the water wheels in my situation. it is created by a potential bug. you would think that having a giant line of block missing from your dam would cause the entire thing to just instantly drain, and your correct. however if you place a block at the bottom of that entire line. the game treats the gap as a waterfall or something like that. and for whatever reason it limits the flow at which water can escape
no block at bottom reservoir empties
https://i.imgur.com/7QE6FT1.png
block at bottom reservoir fills
https://i.imgur.com/8MDkY0R.png -
01 Dec, '21
NeffsterI am with Wyld on this one, just a dam piece that includes a small power generator, maybe 10 hp then we have to chain them all together in the water flow to make any significant power out of it. requires research to unlock and maybe logs and planks. no metal, that is to late game for this tech
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11 Dec, '21
BrandonI feel like this could be a good replacement for the compact water wheel iron teeth exclusive. It could be a dam block with a small water wheel on top. they would produce a small amount of hp individually maybe 15-20 but could be daisy chained easily
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02 Jan, '22
McSkirmishpantsI am all for a small unit that could be chained together in early game but I am much more in favour for a new late game tech that requires a large amount of late game resources to produce a large amount of power.
This would need certain width and height to make it possible and a solid achievement for any Beavers that can launch themselves into a new age of powered life if they are able to achieve it. -
08 Jan, '22
EricA similar function could be achieved if there was a way to output a controlled amount of water from the bottom of a dam wall, then we could place existing waterwheels as needed, then output water "into" it, without needing to mess with floodgate increments at the top to create spillover. Assuming the flow mechanics allowed for that, it could be a mid/late game thing, since it could grant steady flow and power even during droughts.
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20 Feb, '22
Mark TaylorI'd actually merge this in with pipes and aqueducts (and pumps that attach to those things). Revamp the whole water-moving system. Manually hauling water around and such should only be for early-game, and building 'water-wheels' inside dam (floodgate) pieces is a natural development out of early wind/water mech-tech.
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05 Mar, '22
Ejr MergedThe floodgates generate power when water is passing through them, making a nice new source of power!
I hope that other people appreciate the idea since I think that it would be a nice addition to the game. -
05 Mar, '22
Zam! Admin MergedYou already have hydroelectric floodgates. You place a floodgate and a waterwheel just behind it.
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05 Mar, '22
Zam! System"Hydroelectric floodgates." (suggested by Ejr on 2022-03-05), including upvotes (1) and comments (1), was merged into this suggestion.
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08 Apr, '22
Sven MergedA damn that creates power by letting water through it. The power output could for example be depending on the height difference traveled by the water going through the dam.
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09 Apr, '22
Gin Fuyou System"Power dam" (suggested by Sven on 2022-04-08), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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22 Apr, '22
RayneAfter all, the fun of this game is in the building of the dam.
All the incentives to build dams are great.
I know there are huge dams that use a mechanism where a waterfall of only one tile becomes a channel that constantly flows a small amount of water, but it would be nice if they were officially supported. -
02 May, '22
Jcheungso for those who mentioned 'you can just stick a water wheel behind a floodgate', my original intention was a lategame, relatively compact (compared to a set of water wheels) water retaining structure that produced power based on how much pressure and flow was behind it (and therefore you wouldn't want more than one or two, and a really tall dam behind it) that produced reasonable amounts of power without needing to stick several dozen water wheels downstream.
something to potentially shove (at the time) 11+ water wheels (2k+ hp) or more worth of production into a tall structure instead of needing 72 tiles of water wheels along the river.
i had thought that perhaps one structure (or perhaps 3 different stackable ones that worked as one unit, an output, vertical penstock, and intake) had the potential to reduce visual moving parts (and asset counts) which would marginally improve performance lategame for those massive cities people (and myself) were building which ran at 10 fps. -
24 Jul, '22
GakeMy own take, to flesh it out and make it different from water wheel:
Hydro-Turbine
-2x2x2 placement, can create a line of them.
-No workers.
-Advised to place on the bottom of the reservoir for maximum gain.
-hph is based on depth of the reservoir, 200 hp per block in depth. Up to 1.5k hp per turbine; so HYPER good, but requires a LOT of metal to make.
-"Dries" reservoir and spawns water on opposite end to avoid water bugging out in appearance. Similar to Mechanical Water Pump.
-Despawns+spawns water VERY quickly; spits water out at 50% height on both tiles. Only works when needed.
This should be combined with an option to make Mechanical Pump only pump under specific weather or time of day conditions to make a "water battery." -
28 Dec, '22
Jimmy MergedThe grand pappy of power generation!. This should take up a 3x1 tile and can only be placed under a waterfall (x3 tiles). basically as long as there is a waterfall running over the hydro, it will produce electricity. If a drought knocked out the waterfall, power goes to zero.
I would recommend around 600-800hp? Cost 8 to 10k science points.
Thoughts? -
01 Jan, '23
Gin Fuyou System"Hydroelectric generator" (suggested by Jimmy on 2022-12-28), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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15 Jan, '23
TonyC MergedDams that create power but also hold back water in the dry season. They can be connected to a power shaft and power a building like any other power source.
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25 Jan, '23
Gin Fuyou System"Hydropower Dams" (suggested by TonyC on 2023-01-15), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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10 Mar, '23
Gin Fuyou System"for the irontooth i wish me a turbine power plant water" (suggested by Hyruler85 on 2023-01-31), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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05 May, '24
Jcheung System"Dam with power generation" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2024-05-03), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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13 May, '24
Joel SSomeone used the term "sluice gate"... to me, this is an important missing item in the game. The flood gate feature allows you to control three height blocks from surface level, but hydroelectric dams release water into the power system at the base of the dam, where hydrostatic head is greatest. I would love to see a sluice or spillway gate feature where a controllable amount of water can be released from the base of the reservoir (dam), not the top. This would also allow you to benefit from large amounts of stored water, even if not used for power generation. Edit: upon further research, this feature might more properly be called a "penstock". Ref. "power generation plant" entry under English Wikipedia listing for "dam".
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20 Sep, '24
UiráThe important thing is to convert potential energy into power, so this should be about waterfalls. Waterwheels don't do that. As long as the water is moving horizontally (it takes a single block of height differential across the whole map) they generate power and the water doesn't slow down, ergo, infinity power. Instead, I imagine something like this (side view parallel to the ground, water reservoir to the left)
wwwww|
wwwww|\
wwwww|o\
wwwww|oo\
------------|ooo|wwwww
The building should have a 1x3 footprint, so we can stack-it side by side, It should have a height of 4, and it should be possible to stack them up like this
This should be some late game thing requiring quite a bit of terraforming to maximize it's use, so something expensive,
wwwww|
wwwww|\
wwwww|o\
wwwww|oo\
-----------------|\
-----------------|o\
-----------------|oo\
-----------------|ooo\wwwww -
16 Feb, '25
John Pork MergedA 2 long 3 wide 2 high dam power unit producing 400 hp per cm. The water input would be above the 1 height, and would dump the water below the water below, this way, dams could be stacked in a staircase sort of way. However it would take a while for the water to come out so that these dams aren't exploited for power. It would take one beaver per dam to monitor the facility and what not. There could also be a bigger version of this dam that is 4 long 5 wide and 4 tall, with the same input and outputs as the smaller version. This one wouldn't rely on the speed of the water, but rather how much water it takes in, basically convert water volume to power. 1 water block would be 200 hp. The smaller version wouldn't be hydroelectric, but rather a dam with built in water wheels to generate hp, while the larger version would be hydroelectric and would need 2 people monitoring it. This is just for Iron-teeth, while maybe the folktails could get nuclear/badwater plants for power. Remember Me
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20 Feb, '25
Gin Fuyou System"Dam Power" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-02-16), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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05 Apr, '25
Josh.Could be fun to have like a sluice gate kind structure that just makes power based on how much pressure the water has and how much flows through it. so that it will would with any dam we build.
As if it is only a few heights then I think is would just make itself more limited for no good reason. -
15 Jun, '25
NobodyThis idea has grown on me over the past two months, I am now in favor.
It would be nice to have a power unit that doesn't care about being flooded... rather like an impeller needs to be fully submerged in a pressurized pipe. -
11 Jun
kirby Mergeda turbine, which you can put in a dam, which converts high pressure water to horsepower, probably very expensive, very lategame maybe big and power drops rapidly with pressure (maybe we could use the new pump to make a water based battery?)
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14 Jun
Gin Fuyou System"pressure turbine" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2026-06-11), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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14 Jun
Gin Fuyou System"hydro pump storage power plants" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2021-10-11), including upvotes (6) and comments (1), was merged into this suggestion.
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2 days ago
SamWith the new compact mechanical pump, I think a water turbine should also be added. It could be the same building with a toggle for pumping / power production, or a separate building. If the beavers are able to build a compact mechanical pump, it doesn't make sense they wouldn't be able to build a water turbine. And it would be so much fun to create some intricate dams to power your industrial district.
Power output should depend on the water flow rate and on the water level upstream of the turbine (and the water level downstream of the turbine, in case it is higher than the turbine level).