Bug.
Solar boiler not generating steam without external electricity.
Save, screenshoots, mod list:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uxoez4cmis900u2/AAC0yu_WPs3SJdvxzUyWsKO3a?dl=0

Is it near night time? A solar boiler will only generate electricity during the daylight hours. The red bar on your Consumes electricity -> Electricity seems to indicate either late evening or early morning. To even out your power, you can store the steam and generate electricity from that with steam engines.

Besides that, your solar boiler will prioritize steam generation until it fills your steam system. You'll only get about 1 kw/s of electricity from it prior to that point. Furthermore, if it is carelessly connected to your electrical grid, it will consume electricity to boil with during times when sunlight is less than 100% and your steam system isn't filled.

To keep my solar boilers from browning out my electrical system (they add 1.8 mw of demand for brownout calculations), I buffer them with an accumulator/power switch combination that only connects to the main grid when an attached accumulator within the firewall is at 100%. That way, they can provide surplus solar power to the grid when they aren't generating steam.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8wnqjucyplx6x3/Untitled.png?dl=0

Day time.
Tested for different saves. Also tested in sandbox world with "day time only" settings.
Same result.

My next supposition would be that the substation not being directly to the solar boiler might have an effect. If you put a pole right next to the solar boiler and ensure that it's directly wired to the substation (or to your device), does it change the behavior? I vaguely remember weird things about the solar boiler's invisible electrical connection.

"weird things about the solar boiler's invisible electrical connection."
After update it is not a thing any more. Tower and mirrors became one piece.
Noticed, that boiler actualy produce some steam without external power. Exacly 1.4 steam per second in the middle of the day.

After update it is not a thing any more. Tower and mirrors became one piece.

Good that it works now, even without further fixing! :-)

Thank you. This was helpful. As a beginner, I found the item description text confusing ("This Solar power plant uses solar energy to generate electricity and steam") when I hovered over it in the build menu.

It actually just generates steam. During the day is generates and consumes 1.8MW (NET ZERO) to generate the steam. During the night it consumes 1.8MW to generate the steam.

I respectfully suggest that a more accurate description text would be "This Solar Boiler generates steam by using solar energy during the day and electricity during the night."

P.S. This mod is lovely and the only reason why I bought the game after being disheartened by all the pollution in the demo.

@AngrySquirrel:

I respectfully suggest that a more accurate description text would be "This Solar Boiler generates steam by using solar energy during the day and electricity during the night."

Changed the description for the next release.

P.S. This mod is lovely and the only reason why I bought the game after being disheartened by all the pollution in the demo.

Thanks for the compliment! :-D