power storage; flywheel

Comments: 53

• 15 Sep
  Chris Merged

  It would be appreciated if there were some means of storing power so building aren't flickering off when wind dies or water is stagnant during the dry season. Could be something that costs a lot of science points, but would make the cities more stable.

• 17 Sep
  Boomysum Merged

  Have a new building added that when connected to power sources, cranks up and stores kinetic energy. when the grid loses power, it will begin unraveling to supply the grid with support power until the power comes back on!

• 17 Sep
  pedasjma

  i think it should be like 3x3 non stackable and store power and release it over like a period off like 1 day,

• 17 Sep
  Yonish Admin

  "Rubber Band Batteries" (suggested by Boomysum on 2021-09-17), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.

• 17 Sep
  Thaina Yu

  I am kind of disagree on these kind of idea and instead we should havecomplete water power system. We should have a way to transfer water uphill by power. And let it flow down to waterwheel. Or have a turbine that generate power from falling/draining water
  
  At the very least maybe making water battery tower. A hourglass shaped water tower. Have 2 barrel on top of each other and it will take power to pump water up. And drain down when power is needed

• 17 Sep
  bcmpinc

  I you can have both a flywheel and hydro dam power as long as the flywheel, being the easy and cheap solution is less effective than the hydro dam power one. So for the flywheel you should put in 2-4x as much energy as you can get out and there should be a constant energy loss, which increases with speed. So they help getting a bit more out of wind power, but will only retain it for at most a day.
  
  Hydro dams are more of a long term power storage. You move water up using haulers or using a pump/Archimedes screw. Then release it using some flow rate controlling gate feeding it into one or more water wheels to generate power in times of shortage. This one should be close to 100% efficient, though there's always loss due to evaporation.

• 17 Sep
  jcheung

  hydro pumped storage would also be acceptable to me. preferable even, but i wanted to start my suggestion with a limited one to take the edge off of wind power's extremes rather than the entire power grid

• 17 Sep
  Norbert Merged

  Storing energy/power is not possible in alfa yet. The flywheel would be the simplest design, but there are other ways to store energy without using modern batteries. Mechanical batteries using kinetic energy or gravity

• 18 Sep
  ChathSuaco Merged

  We're working with mechanical energy, and I can appreciate that that's very hard to store, but it is possible, and would make the windmills feel much more powerful, because their on and off nature would be mitigated. A flywheel works by taking in mechanical energy to spin up a heavy wheel, using a clutch. When this energy is needed, the clutch can be engaged to push energy back into the system.
  
  Technically speaking, it should take scrap blocks to make, and should be staffed by one beaver. (Someone needs to engage the clutch to spin up the fly wheel and then to power the system.) And the size of the building can vary, obviously, but multiple sizes could be implemented, as small as 1x2x2 to as large as it needs to be.

• 18 Sep
  Gin Fuyou Admin

  "Fly wheel for power storage" (suggested by ChathSuaco on 2021-09-18), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.

• 18 Sep
  zacherl

  It would be great if one could pump water automatically (by using water force) to a reservoir on a higher level that is used again to produce mechanical energy (e. g. via a different wheel) as soon as there is no water for pumping (such as in a drought). Would be really nice to piece it together with different components.

• 18 Sep
  Vinny P Merged

  This probably ties into the water pumps suggestions; being able to pump water to a higher elevation and then releasing them when needed is something humans do with our hydro-electric dams, but beavers should be able to do it also (imo, anyway).
  
  But flywheels and similar devices would be fantastic for short-term 'battery' storage.
  
  Maybe you could have a weight on a spool that gets a bonus to capacity the further above the ground they are?

• 19 Sep
  FishmanDefender Merged

  Adding a flywheel would be a great way to compensate for the variability of water & wind power. Having two, (one made of wood that isn't super efficient and another made of metal which is considerably moreso), would compliment the "two-tiered" power structure of the folktails very nicely. I haven't played the iron teeth yet to know if their progression has a similar "low-power" and "high-power" phase of gameplay, so my comment is restricted to the folktail faction for now.

• 19 Sep
  Emerald Merged

  Might require a rewrite to how the power system works to include both strength of mechanical power and amount produced/stored/released. The inconsistent generation needs a way to balance it out over time.

• 19 Sep
  Gin Fuyou Admin

  "Flywheel for power storage" (suggested by Emerald on 2021-09-19), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.

• 19 Sep
  jcheung Merged

  please upvote related: https://timberborn.featureupvote.com/suggestions/215309/power-storage-flywheel

• 20 Sep
  Thaina Yu Merged

  https://timberborn.featureupvote.com/suggestions/215309/power-storage-flywheel

• 20 Sep
  MINIMAN10000

  Under the umbrella concept I would really like to see a stable source of power that doesn't involve beavers on a treadmill.

• 20 Sep
  pmduda Admin

  "Mechanical battery to store power" (suggested by Norbert on 2021-09-17), including upvotes (5) and comments (2), was merged into this suggestion.

• 21 Sep
  pmduda Admin

  "Battery Terminal" (suggested by Chris on 2021-09-15), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.

• 23 Sep
  ChathSuaco

  This diagram was posted on the discord by IGame4FUN, and I thought it would be good to share in this discussion.
  https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/723433090944335933/890628303688450138/Schematic-diagram-of-pumped-hydro-storage-plant.png

• 25 Sep
  Lion-Rye

  a big stack of gears

• 25 Sep
  Slovak Shadow Merged

  Spring Battery
  Science cost: 800
  Size: 2x2x2 (non-solid)
  Resources: 20 planks, 15 gears, 15 scrap metal
  
  This building would store up to 500hp using springs, accumulated whenever there would be a surplus of hp in a power network, and then set to gradually release it over time in configurable amounts per day. For example, you could set it to release everything currently stored in one day, or you could set it to gradually release 100hp a day into the network. This could be useful during droughts to power central buildings when water wheels aren't available.
  
  
  Large Spring Battery
  Science cost: 1600
  Size: 3x3x2 (solid)
  Resources: 50 planks, 30 gears, 30 metal blocks
  
  This upgrade to the spring battery would store up to 1500hp, accumulated at a rate of 2 network hp:1 stored hp during power network surpluses. Similarly to the regular spring battery, it could be set to release a configurable amount per day, but also in shorter increments.

• 26 Sep
  Gin Fuyou Admin

  "Spring Battery and its upgrade - A new power building to store hp" (suggested by Slovak Shadow on 2021-09-25), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.

• 26 Sep
  Mailion

  we could use a gravity battery like with pulleys and weights or something, of course, it would use a lot of gears and wouldn't be very long-lived this would be for if the wind cut out, it wouldn't really be for the dry season

• 29 Sep
  Gin Fuyou Admin

  "Накопление энергии." (suggested by Григорий on 2021-09-28), including upvotes (0) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.

• 29 Sep
  Gin Fuyou Admin

  Григорий, мы просим использовать только английский язык для всех тем, кроме связанных с переводом.
  Объединил в эту ветку.
  
  EN: Sorry, but we ask to use only English for all topics except translations. Merged into this thread.

• 29 Sep
  Frickypoo Merged

  The Idea would be some kind of spring storage device (using metal and wood so it would be available in the mid/late game). The device can wind up the spring that would store the excess rotational energy to then be unwound later to provide energy when the windmills stop. You could have small batteries (with little springs) or Mega Batteries that require considerable metal to build.
  
  Although they are not using electricity, there should be a way to store some buffer of energy (for example when the wind does not blow the windmills). It would be great for the outposts that are further from the water and rely on the interment wind to produce considerable power.

• 29 Sep
  Gin Fuyou Admin

  "Rudimentary "Batteries"" (suggested by Frickypoo on 2021-09-29), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.

• 30 Sep
  BulletMagnetEd

  Some kind of power storage would be nice. If the beavers can work with metal, they should be able to make some kind of battery. We've had the technology for centuries.

• 01 Oct
  unfortunately

  Flywheels absolutely do not fit thematically or with the game mechanics. Pumping water uphill for later use with the preexisting water wheels is a great idea, though. The best way to achieve this would be using pipes/aqueducts and/or mechanical-powered (not the existing beaver-powered) pumps.

• 01 Oct
  UristMcKerman

  There are gravitational batteries IRL (a heavy weight is lifted during charging and then lowers during discharge) like this one https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/LWS_prototype_inside.jpg/1280px-LWS_prototype_inside.jpg
  
  Fits into game's theme perfectly.

• 03 Oct
  Netherdan

  I think the "Expanded pump mechanics and pipelines" suggestion (https://timberborn.featureupvote.com/suggestions/201496/expanded-pump-mechanics-and-pipelines) would solve the problem of storing power in hydro dams.
  
  The flywheel would be another way of storing power that doesn't consume large amounts of area and acts as a kinetic battery, it would help especially with inconsistent power sources like the windmills. To operate a flywheel it could be needed 50 hp (or "bp" for beaverpower like RCE suggests in his videos) but gradually reduces to 10 hp to maintain its momentum at full capacity. It could have different tiers of flywheels with, for example, 1000 hp.h (1x3) and 3000 hp.h (1x4) of energy storage and the flywheels could be set up in parallel for added capacity

• 04 Oct
  Anton Gvozdev

  Power storage can be executed as "Gravity Power Storage" where power stored in a form of heavy metal blocks lifter to store power and lowered to release power.

• 05 Oct
  Thelightcosine

  With better water pumping/pipe mechanics this could actually be done. If you had powered water pumps you could use excess power to pump water into an up hill reservoir. When power is low you could then open floodgates into water wheels, releasing stored potential energy. It’s called pumped-storage hydroelectricity: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity

• 05 Oct
  Freki

  the storage of power to me seems to null the preparation aspect of the game for the drought. the wind mills supply a form of power out side of water. if that is not enough hydropower from a dam during the wet season would be interesting.

• 05 Oct
  Tonton Sancho Merged

  The Energy Vault could store (excess) energy rising an heavy block of metal/wood/concrete.
  Then, The Energy Vault could give back stored energy lowering (by gravity) that block.

• 07 Oct
  Gin Fuyou Admin Merged

  Changed title for better navigation

• 07 Oct
  Gin Fuyou Admin

  "Energy vault building (gravity power storage)" (suggested by Tonton Sancho on 2021-10-05), including upvotes (1) and comments (1), was merged into this suggestion.

• 09 Oct
  Shraeder Merged

  It would be cool to use analogue power storage to the game when there's downtime from windmills or water wheels when there's droughts. A flywheel building could store power using inertia, or another cool idea would be a weight and pully system you could hang off of a cliff or a tall structure. Both of these would still fit the "aesthetic" and overall analogue feel of the crank power generation system

• 10 Oct
  𝒟𝒾𝒶𝓂⟡𝓃𝒹𝕏

  Weighted rope system
  https://youtu.be/mmrwdTGZxGk
  A pulley system lifts a heavy boulder to a height of the gear box at the top of a crane like structure, when someone requires energy for buildings, the boulder will slowly fall at a rate that matches the connected buildings required enegry. I drew a picture of a design that I likes, this would require completely vertical shafts, a ladder for easier building, and a foot print that locks onto the corner of a 4x4 base (which only has 4 platforms on either corner). The rope will extend all the way to the terrain, from any height. Input and output are seperate, incase the boulder is at the peak, output will initiate.
  https://discord.com/channels/558398674389172225/723433090944335933/896617935265755176

• 11 Oct
  Gin Fuyou Admin

  "Analogue Power Storage" (suggested by Shraeder on 2021-10-09), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.

• 14 Oct
  Lonelyguardsmen Merged

  Just as the title says. make it late game and require metal? would be interesting to see beavers using gears and metal springs to store energy.

• 14 Oct
  Gin Fuyou Admin

  "clockwork "battery" for storing mechanical power" (suggested by Lonelyguardsmen on 2021-10-14), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.

• 14 Oct
  Andrei

  Or not necessary to last the entire dry season duration, but to smooth out the wind generation randomness.

• 16 Oct
  pehi

  I don't think it is a good idea, The lack of energy with bad weather is part of the survival and it force you to big building projects in the endgame, like actually making pumped storage plant (also mentioned above in the comment by Thelightcosine ) . Right now you can "simply" build a reservoir with levees and put a lot of water dumps on it (I put about 23 and it is enough for continuous stream of water for my case). Then you build a floodgate and build a path for streaming water with levees and add series of waterwheels. I currently have two "power plants", the bigger one has 33 wheels producing 5940 energy regardless of weather or season. If you need energy at night, when water dumps are off, you simply open the floodgate a bit more. It also consume a lot of water and occupy a lot of haulers so it is a nice endgame project to set up the infrastructure around it. If something, adding powered water pumps may make the project easier, as Thelightcosine mentioned.

• 19 Oct
  FRCTNLSS

  I think that suggestion for new technologies would be great to incorporate into new races that have distinct strategy differences.
  
  These ideas are nice, but if every race incorporated the same buildings and enhancements then there would be less desire to try new races of beavers.

• 20 Oct
  Jamie

  I agree that power storage would be so useful

• 31 Oct
  Yamabiibaa

  I'd prefer to see more options for storage solutions that require at least some engineering on the player's side, like Archimedes screws or other forms of water transport, to go alongside the water mechanics.
  Flywheels (and other similar one-building solutions) feel like the cheap way out.

• 03 Nov
  Knapp

  I'm glad that others also thought of the flywheel to store power, feels like a perfect late game metal-requiring building. Might not feel right for every faction in relation to having water dam storage, but still! I hope this gets into the game in some way.

• 10 Nov
  Cali

  I would very much like to see some sort of power storage option.

• 22 Nov
  Quantum

  I would build so many of these I don't even care if they are inefficient

• 2 days ago
  Robin

  why using metal If you have Water. Best way to store energy in High amounts today is still pumping water uphill