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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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…
| Grid | Production | Consumption | Conclusion |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 300 MV | 50 MV | this grid haven’t problems |
| B | 100 MV | 125 MV | this grid will have problems |
| C | 100 MV | 25 MV | this 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.
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.
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.
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!
