Workers and Resources is a complicated game, when you are new (or newish) it is very easy to struggle with basic things like getting public transport working.

There are video tutorials but not only do you have to invest 10 minutes or even as much as an hour, but they might never mention or just gloss over the specific thing you wanted to know. The simple series provides bite-sized chunks of information that you can skim through in a minute to get what you want to know.

The simple series often provides a single opinioned way to do things. not because it is the only way or even the best way, but just because it is easy to explain concisely.

You might need to disable the grid snapping temporarily to place them.

A power plant that solely depends on the electricity it produces to run itself is a bit ridiculous.

A power plant has at least 2 high voltage lines. Connect one of those lines to your network and connect the other one directly to another custom house. The line should be completely separate from your normal electrical grid.

You only need 2MW of power early on, and power plants produce at least 18MW, so it's a waste not to use it. A power plant will only ever export unused electricity.

The closest power source is not determined by distance but by the number of switches it hits.

So if the electricity from the custom's house has to pass through 2 switches and the electricity from your power plant has to pass through 1, then your power plant should be prioritised.

The import price and export price of electricity are exactly the same. So as long as you export your excess electricity, it doesn't matter if you don't get the prioritisation working at first.

Firstly, you should check my public transport guide.

Using an end station is very important for this.

You should deliver workers to a nearby bus station instead of the power plant itself and build the power plant near other industrial buildings.

If you build a power plant near a heating plant and 2 coal processing plants, then you need over 100 people to full run them. If you are trying to deliver 100 people to a bus stop every work shift, then even on a "bad day", you should be able to deliver 50 people, right? That would be enough to keep the lights on.

Use the first one, voltage, to determine whether individual buildings are powered.

Use the second one, wattage, to check how much electricity is produced by your power plants and how much is running through your high-voltage switches.

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