Generator effeciency

[Weylin]

If you just shove a stack of charcoal in a generator, and run a few machines off of it, does a lot of the energy generated get wasted?

I swear I got into a huge argument with my friend over this.

I insisted that even if the power consumption is negligible, it'll constantly burn more coal than it really needs to.

He insisted it only burns coal when it is needed and said I'm not very smart for feeding it in only when the energy storage is depleted enough to hold what it will produce.

I want to know for sure which it is, because this is driving me to madness.

It's a bit confusing, because the fuel burning icon will stay at full, and then suddenly drop rapidly.

[Resource Inc.]

ok..

well when a generator is fully powered its not gonna burn anymore fuel right.but when you run some machines it will keep burning fuel triying until it's full again.but like I'm not sure about the energy wasted.

[Weylin]

Eh, ok, I tested this.

I had 2 generators and 2 macerators.

One generator had a stack of charcoal just left in.

The other generator was being fed manually by me.

The macerator doesn't use energy faster than a generator can output.

It turns out that the one with fuel just left in was going entirely to waste. I basically got on the order of 70% higher fuel efficiency by feeding it manually.

[DanielJin]

I guess the generator need to burn off one charcoal at once? Even there's no storage left, the generator can't stop burning the one charcoal and some energy would be wasted. Since the generator gets more energy then the macerater uses, this could be the reason.

That's why you need a batbox.

[Resource Inc.]

Well looks like you solved the problem!

PS:Stop using generators and start using a batbox

[Torezu]

Well looks like you solved the problem!

PS:Stop using generators and start using a batbox

Nope. Batboxes are energy storage, while generators are energy production. You'll still lose quite a bit of efficiency if you drop a stack of coal into a generator and let it run, after the bat box finishes filling its measly storage capacity. 10 coal in a generator (4000 EU per) will fill a batbox. If you don't have multiple batboxes, you'll waste any extra EU generated from coal burned. The generator will start burning a new piece of coal as soon as energy is needed. It's like a normal furnace that way. Use an MFE to store up to 600,000 EU (15 times that of a bat box), or 150 pieces of coal worth. Just don't forget to transform that current down out of the MFE if you don't want to blow up your machines.

[warpspeed10]

Simple answer: If there is even the slightest space left for energy, the generator will try to fill it. It does that by burning one fuel in its inventory, even if there is not enough space for all the energy produced by said fuel. So, have a batbox send a signal when it's empty/full and use that to tell your system to stop putting fuel in.