I made a seperate energy grid. Greenhouses make wood, which powers boilers->steam engines->energy.
The excess wood I belt to my main grid boilers.
you make more energy burning the wood than you need creating it.
It does need a decent bit of space, the greenhouses negate most of the pollution from this setup.
And because burning wood does make extra pollution, like coal (250%) this is a very viable early game strat.
Can easily get you to solar panels/further, maybe uses even less space
No idea how to effectively balance this, i guess limit the # of greenhouses you can build?

if this is an issue then solar panels existing is an issue, but it isn't so this isn't an issue

but you can do this so much earlier and greenhouses arn't dependent on accumulators. So its a really consistent energy source. I guess the mod devs have to decide.

Hi Pikkson,
we've considered this, is an expensive setup, much space for early game, also u have to spend time that can be used to push techs to better energy provider, so, I'm sorry but this is not an exploit, is another way to play the mod ;)

Also I suggest u to try mix wood with coal to produce coke, the energy consumed to power up the autonomus greenhouse/boilers reduce a lot the energy produced compared with a greenhouse/furnaces -> coke -> boilers setup

Remember that boilers are meant for early game, not for be a power soruce for the entire game.
Have a nice game.