Thermal Solar Power (Lite)

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#### Overview A simplified, improved and IMO more reasonably balanced fork of the mod [Thermal Solar Power] by MarximusMaximus, CyberWizard2261 and Caxx. The mod mainly provides a thermal solar panel that produces heat from sunlight but also dissipates it in proportion to its temperature, and a basic heat exchanger for either heating up water or boiling it into steam.

As of v.2.6.0, there are two ways of playing this mod: 1) Set the exchanger to produce steam (≥100℃), and it easily combines with steam storage, steam engines and optionally boilers as backup to provide 100% renewable energy around the clock. This makes the solar thermal complex a really nice, long-term alternative to solar panels + accumulators, although perhaps an overpowered one because of the cheap energy storage. 2) Set the exchanger to only heat up water (<100℃), so the water must be fed into a boiler, which in turn will have its fuel consumption reduced, but by no more than 56.67%. This makes the thermal solar complex more of an early-game or partial solution for renewable energy that better fits into the intended progression of the game.

#### Balancing Comparison with solar panels: The thermal solar complex in its most complete configuration is balanced to produce just about the same amount of power pr. area as solar panels + accumulators. It is cheaper, available earlier, can store energy as hot water or steam and integrates well with coal-fired boilers, but it requires access to water, takes a while to get going, has rather low discharge rate, combines less efficiently with accumulators and has a shorter productive window (which is much more sharply defined and may only last about 54.3% instead of 70% of the day cycle at full utilization, making nightly power outages caused by power overdraw much more consequential).

Steam configuration: At default values, the thermal solar panel nominally produces 116kW of heat energy from sunlight, but due to heat loss, the maximum output at 165℃ is only ~78.5kW (67.7%), and the daily average only ~42.7kW (36.8%) in practice. 27 thermal panels provide just enough heat to fully drive a 2,100kW basic heat exchanger during the day. 2 steam engines are needed to take advantage of the ~1,151kW daily average output. ~7k units of steam storage is enough to keep production completely stable around the clock. For safety, combine with a boiler that only switches on when steam storage runs low.

Hot water configuration: For parity and neat ratios, set panel heat generation to 90kW and exchanger target temperature to 90℃. Using the hot water in a boiler can reduce fuel consumption by exactly half, at the risk of the boiler shutting down if it runs dry. To prevent this, limit with either the steam engines (900kW each) or with the boiler (3,600kW with 90℃ water). Alternatively, use valves (from mods) or pumps/circuitry to temporarily feed the boiler a bit of cold water instead if it does happen (a top-up valve at the lowest threshold of 10% works well enough). If you just want a simple and reliable setup, combine 21 panels with 1 exchanger, 1 tiny storage tank (from a mod), 1 boiler and two steam engines for 1,800kW of power around the clock. To make better use of the 2,100kW capacity of the exchanger, build 27 panels and 3 steam engines along with valves or pumps/circuitry, for ~2,300kW of power around the clock with an additional ~400kW peak capacity (can safely be expanded later with turbines, and steam storage can be added as desired).

#### Tips and tricks Console commands: Write */tspl info* to get some useful info about energy output and optimal building ratios on the current surface. Write */tspl help* for info on in-built debugging tools. */tspl reset* is particularly useful for quickly resolving any issues with the heat generating script on your own.

Basic heat pipes: Keep their use to a minimum within the thermal solar complex, since they increase heat capacity of the network and makes it more difficult to break the temperature threshold.

#### Other mods

Mod adaptations: The mod has been adapted for Space Age: Thermal panels work in space, and their output roughly scales the way they are supposed to with quality tiers. With [Pyanodons Coal Processing], thermal panel heat capacity and output are doubled to account for halved steam engine efficiency. With [AAI Industry], [Cheese's Concentrated Solar] or [Early Heating], various recipes cost less. And [More Quality Scaling] gets to use its own, more accurate solution for scaling of thermal panel output with its use of clones.

Mod recommendations: The 1x1 storage tanks from [Tiny Storage Tanks] and [Zithorian's Extra Storage Tanks] allow for compact storage where buffer needs are low. [Valves] are very useful because they take up less space than pumps, need no power and can perform their unique functions without signals, while [Configurable Valves] can also be configured with ten times greater precision and be controlled with circuits. A greenhouse mod such as [Krastorio 2 Greenhouse + Wood Pyrolysis] can supply renewable fuel for the boiler (although it will still pollute). [Consistent Underground Belts and Pipes] makes some builds easier, and it just makes sense to me. A [Fluid Level Indicator] can help you keep tabs on your fluid storage. And if you want a serious upgrade to the solar thermal complex, check out [Cheese's Concentrated Solar]!

Mod balancing suggestions: For [Pyanodons Coal Processing], I suggest setting the capacity of the basic heat exchanger to 4,200kW. If you want it to produce 250℃ steam like the boiler, but without any drop in efficiency, you can change the heat loss coefficient to 0.00314.

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Also check out the FAQ!

[Thermal Solar Power]: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/thermal-solar-power [AAI Industry]: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/aai-industry [Pyanodons Coal Processing]: https://mods.factor