Power lines in Cities Skylines

After article with all information about power in Cities Skylines there is focused article just about power lines. Because this part of electricity could be little tricky for maintain. Some players have problems with power lines and if you don’t build it properly you could have problems with electricity. After today’s article you will know everything about power lines. 🕵️

Basic information about power lines

Power lines are one “service buildings” in Cities Skylines which could help you extending your power grid. By default power grid in Cities Skylines is extended in two ways. First and more classic is that every building has small range in which they provide electricity for other buildings. Second way is using power lines and with them you could connect farthest parts of your city without building zones between them.

Power line stats

Power line cost 20₡ per cell and costs 0,48₡ to maintain. They could be elevated with page up or page down button but they can’t be built underground.

Building power lines to connect farthest part of your city

Active power line with electricity is blue. If power line doesn’t have electricity then is black. With this feature you could watch which power line has electricity and which don’t.

Power line without energy (left) and with energy (right)

If you have problems with power grid you will see something like this. When building is connected to grid is blue and if not then is brown and has electricity icon over.

Unconnected buildings are on right

How to connect power lines?

Connecting power lines is quite easy you must select Electricity > Power Line and after that you must click inside “blue” zone or other poles and connect it to the other poles.

Power grid and active power line before you connect it

If it all works then you won’t see icon bellow then you made good job and all poles will be connected. And after some seconds will be all connected poles blue.

How looks if some power lines aren’t connected

What to do if power lines doesn’t work?

Check if all power grid are connected

If you had big articulated city you may inadvertently build separate grids. 1️⃣ First rule of building power lines is to connect all power grids by power lines. If you build separated grids they could have unique production and consumption which you won’t see in power grid stats because there are stats for whole city.

This is overall stats of electricity.
This is screenshot from early phases

In our sample city I could have build three zones. They will have different stats like this and grid B will have problems because will have bigger consumption than production…

GridProductionConsumptionConclusion
A300 MV50 MVthis grid haven’t problems
B100 MV125 MVthis grid will have problems
C100 MV25 MVthis grid haven’t problems

… but in overall stats you will se that you have 500 MV production and 200 MV consumption. So connecting every districts of city I could highly recommend.

Check that all power-lines are connected

Second problem which you must 2️⃣ check if you have connected all power lines which connects your power grids. When you building roads or zones you could interrupt power line and the disconnect occurs.

How looks if some power lines aren’t connected

So let’s check if you see icon above. And if not then you could go to next point.

If you still see something like this you still have problems with connecting grids.

This isn’t connected grids. As you could see.
Poles are black and resident zones are non active.

Check if Production is grater than Consumption

If all thing above working. So 3️⃣ you probably doesn’t have enough production. You could build new power plant like oil plant or hydro plant. But if you don’t have enough money to build new power plant you could increase budget.

In early phases of game I’m building “coal power plant” so after that I’m setting sliders to 50%. From 40 MW I’m getting just 10 MV for less money. And after when I need electricity I’m increasing budget to 100% and when I’m on 100% I’m building new power plants.

Budgets on power in early phases in Cities skylines

But if you don’t have money for new power plant and you need more electricity you could increase budget to 110% or 120%. BUT if you goes to more than 100% then are your power plant less efficient. And better way is building new power plants!

Martin
I'm Martin, the main creator of this site. I love city builders, transport, and war strategy games. So I create this site to share my love with others! Let's make Tycoon games great again!