I think it would be awesome and also would add realistic feeling to have power plants, nuclear plants, wind power plants. And then even hydro/solar power plants as reserchable technology. Oil and Coal would get another usefullness, Uranium can be added to mine for the nuclear plants. There could be Energy-only Companies, selling or providing electricity.
Uranium would be also very useful as potentional resource for future content (any)
I don't think we should cover cities with electric wires... but for example AOE (area of effect) of available electricity around power plants and then distribution using relays would be awesome.
Function
Imagine you build a Power plant at the edge of the city (or in the center for higher efficiency, but with a fee from the city) with area around the plant providing for example 10GW of electricity per month . And you could build only within the area and within the supply limit. For example masonry consuming 20MW, Appartment 400MW, Store 600MW, Factory large 1000MW etc. (Balancing of course would be needed)
The AOE shouldn't be too big, so you can't just own city with two or three power plants.
And what with uncovered area. Well you can either build a new power plant or build a relay that can transfer energy. But there is a catch. Its own AOE must intersect with AOE of the power plant, so energy can transfer and reaching can expand. Thus substitution for wires. Like in this picture:
Relays would be 1x1Square or 1x2, so it wouldn't take too much space in the city.
Companies + Government
Power Plants and Relays could be also run by government. First it would help cities to gain some income. Second, player could start building right away, because the small area around town center would be covered since the beginning.
Also when two areas of two power plants would intersect a building inside could choose the provider. So if Government offers let's say 100$ per MW and local power company 90$ per MW, you would switch provider to cheaper one. (Again balance of prices needed)
And you could run your own power plants, setting up the price per MW, have option to supply free energy to your own firms and run energy company by yourself.
Attributes
Different energy sources would have had different attributes with lets say four stages High / Medium / Low / Lowest. for example:
Power plants (using oil or coal): Medium price / high produce cost / medium GW production / medium AOE
Nuclear plants : High price / high produce cost / high GW production / high AOE
Wind power plants / tourbine Lowest price / medium produce cost / lowest GW production / low AOE - this should be quick to build option. Let's say i want to build a mine on the other side of the map, but i don't want to build entire Power Plant for it, or use 50 relays to tranfer power, so i build small cheap wind tourbine and lets say four of them can power a mine. It would be like a self-sustained relay
Hydro plants Medium price / low produce cost / medium GW production / medium AOE - can be build only at sides of the river (yay another use for water, other than seaports) /very similar to power plants, but pros: lower produce cost cons: only alongside river
Solar plants Low price / lowest produce cost / low GW production / medium AOE - after researching it, it would provide better alternative for Wind plants, because of higher AOE and lower produce cost but cheap price, you would want to build these around your far far mines.
Also any solar, wind or hydro power plant would add points to enviroment quality of life.
Produce cost = Upkeep+fuel eg. Water dam should have had high upkeep but none fuel, Power plant low upkeep but medium fuel costs etc. (again balancing needed)
R&D
As i mentioned above, hydro and solar power plants must be researched to be used. Or maybe hydro + wind, and have solar since the beginning, or maybe all three?
There could be R&D for the power plants itself.
Lets say expand AOE at 10 / 25 / 50 / 100 / 200 / 400 / 800 and so on points of technology or maybe increase GW production per month.
Exchange:
There could also be entire Energy Market with Energy Exchange in addition to stock exchange, as in real life. Lets say, your power plant produce 100GW of electricity, but the buildings inside AOE consumes only 89GW so you take those remaining 11GW and put them into an exchange. Companies can buy them, use them, store them, sell them to other areas so basically two business aspects would separate. Creation and Providing. You could own energy company, that don't even produce electricity, just buys it and sell it, just like in real life.
Negative impact 1.0 :
There is also a negative impact. Lack of electricity would shut down buildings temporarly. Let's say local power plant provides 10GW of electricity and buildings inside are consuming 9GW. I add relay to expand the area, but then companies build dozen of factories there, so consumption raise to 11GW per month. So, a power plant produces 10GW, consumption is 11GW, so randomly each day buildings will shut down, stop operate, they "add" to queue and wait when another building another day will shut down and there will be electricity for them and they would switch those positions until solved. //// Or this idea can be scratched and there would be ban to build above the limit. So if a building would exceed the power supply limit, it couldn't be build.
Negative impact 2.0 :
Impact of the power plants would be very high, maybe higher than land plots. So there should be a restriction to power plant demolishing. With three or four power plants nicely placed, you can basically control the city, with another ten you can own outer places, so when you would destroy those, you can basically shut down any city, or competition, maybe city template power plants would remain, but they wouldn't be able to cover the demand. So there should be some restrictions rules. For example:
a) Can't demolish power plant and can't relocate
b) Can demolish or relocate if there is a substitution in form of competition or another owned power plant or power plant don't provide electricity to anyone (wind tourbine at mine > mine depleted > mine moved > can remove wind tourbine)
c) Can sell for a price
d) Can sell immediately to a government, but for very low price
Menu Option
I can think of two menu options
1) to turn off the AOE, thus relays. Power plants would provide electricity city-wide, so it would be easier for player to play, but there would still be Energy Exchange, different kinds of power plants, prize competition, supply limit, so without AOE it would still be another source of income and a market to own.
2) As i mentioned in Negative impact 1.0, there can be a menu option for either allow or deny building above supply limit.
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Edit: this idea isn't maybe that big to build whole DLC around it, but it could be part of another DLC, maybe transportation DLC?
