I noticed the CSP units never stop "burning" solar power, they seem to be producing the same amount of heat whether it's day or night. do the CSP units have heat capacity that could be causing this? feels like cheating as it is.

also I was reading up on CSP and saw some research on how they could store their energy through a reversible Haber-Bosch Ammonia synthesis process, using just Air (Nitrogen) and Hydrogen (Water,) maybe some interesting mechanics and design considerations could be added by requiring water input, and perhaps reducing efficiency in proportion to the amount of pollution in the block hosting the CSP unit?

also I was reading up on CSP and saw some research on how they could store their energy through a reversible Haber-Bosch Ammonia synthesis process, using just Air (Nitrogen) and Hydrogen (Water,) maybe some interesting mechanics and design considerations could be added by requiring water input, and perhaps reducing efficiency in proportion to the amount of pollution in the block hosting the CSP unit?

Hello, at first I planned for it to take in water and output steam or straight-up power however, with Factorio's way of making custom machines it really isn't possible as we can only "copy" what already exists; which is a bummer. As you have done some research on CSP's they do store heat energy from various mediums like the synthesis method you mentioned, or from molten aluminum or molten salt. That idea of yours where the efficiency drops based on the concentrated pollution in its block is a great idea, but I'm not too sure if adjusting the output dynamically is possible in Factorio, but I'll try to see what I can do when I get the chance.

I've started a new game with Space Exploration and the issue with CSP generates heat at night has become more apparent, the SE mod wants you to be challenged in early game and it seems a little unbalanced that they generate heat when there is technically no solar power present. I saw there was a recent changelog mentioning "Removed Day and Night CSP", was this causing other issues?

Can someone create an image of what a simple setup looks like? It would be nice if the author of the mod would add one to the mod description, but he has failed to return my request. I have no idea what goes where to make it produce electricity.

this should do the trick. 36MW from the Basic CSP, not sure if the heat capacitors are needed though, because the CSP unit is producing heat at night which I'm hoping to get an explanation for.
https://i.imgur.com/BFKEzku.png

I just finished a Mining Space Industries - Space Exploration mission in which a gigantic Biter nest appears and blots out the sun with "biological smoke". the effect was that the planet would stay in its night period until the nest was destroyed, which caused normal solar cells to cease function and also interfered with construction/logistic drones by slowing them down. Because every ~24 hours there is a Coronal Mass Ejection which requires ~3.2GW of power to deflect I built 96 CSP units before this mission appeared, and all throughout the extended night it was producing uninterrupted power to my base. I imagine the mission would have been more dire if the CSP units were affected by the absence of daylight.

ok, this should work: every 60 ticks add fuel scaled by the darkness value in control.lua:

        csp.burner.currently_burning = "csp-fuel"
        local time = csp.surface.darkness/0.85
        if time < 0.01 then
            time = 0
        end
        -- if csp.burner.remaining_burning_fuel < 1 then
        if (game.tick % 60) == 0 then
            csp.burner.remaining_burning_fuel = (1.0-time) * csp.burner.currently_burning.fuel_value
        end