Solar Calculator

How much steady power do your solar panels and accumulators really give, and how many do you need for the power you want? Open the calculator, pick a planet, and it works it out.

What it does

Shows the real numbers: peak power, the average power you can count on day and night, and accumulator capacity.
Sizes a setup for you: type the power you want, up to 10 TW, and press Enter. It sets the selected panels and accumulators.
Balances: finds the accumulators for your panels, or the panels for your accumulators.
Says what's holding you back: running out of charge at night, or accumulators that can't charge or discharge fast enough.
Reads your base: drag the tool over a solar panel or accumulator, and the calculator takes every panel and accumulator on that electric network.
Presets: keep a plan for each planet or base, and copy, rename or delete them.

Planets and quality

Every planet is listed, even ones you haven't reached yet, along with other surfaces. Space platforms aren't listed. Day length and solar power come from the game, so a map or mod that changes them is counted.

Quality and modded panels and accumulators work too, including panels that make power at night.

Charge and discharge limits matter. Quality raises an accumulator's capacity more than its power: a legendary one holds 6 times the charge, but moves only 2.5 times the power. On Vulcanus's short days, that means you need more quality accumulators than capacity alone suggests, and this calculator counts them. For 10 MW on Vulcanus, that's 14 legendary accumulators, not the 8 that capacity alone would suggest.

How to use it

Each column has rows of panels or accumulators. The radio button picks the row that Adjust and Balance change. The other rows count as already built, so you can ask how many more you need. To size only the selected rows, clear the others with the trash button next to the Enter arrow.

Open it from the shortcut bar or the button at the top left. You can turn that button off in the per-player mod settings, and set a key for the calculator in the game's controls.

Good to know

With Timber & Industry, its Solar, Accumulator and Advanced Solar Arrays can be picked in a row or read with the tool. They count as full, whatever they hold now, and the window says so.
Works with or without Space Age.
Works with Krastorio 2 and Space Exploration, including their panels and accumulators. Machines of theirs that are built as accumulators but store nothing usable, like Krastorio's teleporter, aren't counted. Krastorio's wind turbine is built as a solar panel, so it's listed with the panels and counted as the steady power it gives.
In Space Exploration, a zone appears in the list once its surface exists, and its own solar power is used.
Adds nothing to the game itself, so it's safe to add to or remove from a save. Presets are lost if you remove it.

Thanks

The idea comes from Solar Calculator by Kaktusbot, which runs on Factorio 2.0. This is a new mod with its own code and art, so presets from that mod don't carry over.