Definitions in game:
Energy - is a resource produced by powerplants and consumed by buildings.
Unit: 1 MWh = 1000kWh

Power - is value of energy flow through cable or building.
Unit: 1MW = 1000kW

Voltage - is an indicator of grid health. If voltage is below expected number there is problem with power supply. Use markers view to check voltage of buildings(pic).
Unit: 1kV = 1000V

Low voltage - 230V - expected in end consumer's buildings.
Medium voltage - 22kV - expected at medium voltage substations and consumers(eg. traction)
High voltage - 110kV - expected at high voltage substations and consumers(eg. steel mill).

Notice: In building thumbnails there are Energy an maximum power values.
Day in game has 60 hours.. It means 1MWh of power per day equals
1MWh/60h = 0.0166 MW = 16,6 kW

Our entire task is to provide adequate power for consumers. Good idea is to leave room for new buildings and plan ahead. This guide will not contain informations on construction costs.

We've got some options for connections, from worthless wooden poles to steel monsters:
Medium voltage: 0.65 - 2.3 MW
High voltage: 4-18 MW



Low voltage substation connects automatically square area of 250x250m (not circle!). Clicking on it you can check Estimated Maximum Consumption (EMC) and maximum power of all buildings in area. EMC will be lower if two or more substations overlap. When EMC exceed maximum power of used poles you may expirienced power shortage.

Residential buildings have bigger EMC than actual usage when build. It's caused by fact that people have to buy radio, tv and computers. Then they are using more power.

Road lights and ilumination of buildings can rise your power consumption in the night. Depending on buildings it can rise up by 30%.


Knowing EMC of each substation and their locations you can decide to connect them directly to High Voltage Transformer or fork with medium voltage switch yard. When forking you need to sum up power in branches and check if this sum doesn't exceed maximum power of root line.

On high voltage transformer sum up EMC from all connected medium power lines and choose high voltage line with some reserve.

Trains consumes power depending on their acceleration. Energy usage of trains will be variable.


Forking high voltage lines is same as forking medium voltage lines.
This kind of lines is good for crossing rivers due to longer span.
Fun comes with power plants and border connections. It will be explained on examples.

Let's consider you've got 10k people country (eg. pre-populated vanilla map) with actual power demand at 8MW. You've build single high voltage grid connected with border for import. Let's build coal power plant.


There are 3 factors that infuence efficiency of powerplant:
- Resources - No coal, no power. It's nice to have big aggregated storage as a buffer.
- Workers - Full staff means 100% efficiency. You need reliable and constant source of workers. Cableway, cars as buses or diesel trainbuses (on separate passanger line) are good choose. Electric train can be stopped by power shortage and your workers will be unable to reach power plant. I'm not mentioning walking distance due to high poluttion.
- Power demand - Power plant can produce power only when there is an option to utilize it.

Power prefers sources that are closer to the consumer. It means adding two powerplants or external source can affect production of powerplant.

Maximum power for coal power plant is about 23MW.


You can choose if border connection works as import or export. It is not automatic.
You can limit export using cheaper poles or changing percentage (this is a % of 18 MW not % of available power or something !).


Power plant has different outputs creating separate grids. If power plant is disabled for any reason all of them will be shut down.
- Low voltage - direct connection with powerplant for nearest buildings.
- Medium voltage - 4 nodes
- High voltage - 2 nodes


Having only one connection with your national grid makes powerplant efficiency related to national consumption. There is plenty of potencial power unused. Why not use second grid for selling surplus power? But selling to much can destabilize national grid voltage and cause blackout, what's now?
Let's compare some setups. I will use aluminium plant as dummy load for grid.

All 23MW are available for future use in grid (in this case 8MW due to cheaper poles). However any accident can cause blackout in entire country. Most of power plant potential is unused until expanding industry and cities.

Same as previous but forked with border set to import. It shouldn't take electricity from border if power plant is working fine. In case of emergency (fire, workers shortage) power will be bought from abroad.

You can use this setup also with solar power plant. Replace coal powerplant with solar and border connection with coal or gas. Solar power should save burning fuel/coal during day.


You are exporting 18MW and have available 5MW for domestic use.
Using more power you need to decrese export to avoid importing needed power.

Work in Progress - update soon

Thanks for reading.

I created this guide because questions about the operation of the power grid often arise in discussions. Hope it will help.

Each feedback in the comments will be helpful in making this guide even better. I'm thinking about more advanced setups and paragraph about nuclear power but it can be too much for one guide.

Sorry for linguistic errors ;P