Satisfactory Coal Power 1.2: 300 MW Setup & Exact Ratio

Quick answer: The 100% efficient Satisfactory coal ratio is 4 Coal Generators to 2 Water Extractors clocked at 75% — 300 MW from exactly one Mk.1 Miner on a normal coal node. Each generator makes 75 MW and burns 15 coal + 45 m³ water/min, so the ratio scales linearly: double it for 600 MW, or tile it 12 times for a 3,600 MW mega-plant.

• free costs nothing
• cheap small cost
• setup needs preparation
• grind pays off slowly
• skip the thing to stop doing

Coal power ratios at a glance

All figures assume the Satisfactory Wiki's base values: 75 MW, 45 m³ water/min and 15 coal/min per Coal-Powered Generator at 100% clock speed, and 120 m³/min from a Water Extractor at 100% (90 m³/min at 75%). The 8-generator row shows both the 1:2.666 ratio (3 extractors at 100%) and the simpler 1:2 ratio (4 extractors at 75%) — the second draws slightly less power (4 × 12.6 MW = 50.4 MW vs. 3 × 20 MW = 60 MW) at the cost of one extra building, which is why the video keeps the 1:2 ratio even at scale.

How many coal generators per miner?

One Coal-Powered Generator needs 15 coal/min (one burn every 4 seconds), so generators per miner is just the miner's output divided by 15. A single Mk.1 Miner on a normal coal node — the most common early-game case — feeds exactly 4 generators, which is why 300 MW is the design everyone builds first.

The base design: 4 generators, 2 extractors, 300 MW

This design uses four Coal Generators and two Water Extractors to produce 300 MW while consuming 60 coal per minute — exactly what a single Mark 1 miner on a normal coal node provides. Per the Satisfactory Wiki, each Coal-Powered Generator produces 75 MW and burns 15 coal per minute at 100% clock speed, so four generators cleanly total 300 MW and 60 coal/min, matching the video's numbers precisely. Build it directly on or very near water, close to a coal node, since suitable locations exist near every starting area on the map.

1. Build a raised platform over a lower foundation for pipe routing setupA 3x5 foundation in the water topped by a 4x5 raised grid, leaving one row exposed underneath, gives you clean space to run water pipes to each generator. 1:09

Coal logistics: conveyor lifts feeding a manifold

Coal reaches each generator through conveyor lifts placed on the solid input, routed underneath and behind the generators into the gap between platform levels. From there, a splitter manifold distributes coal from a single supply line to every generator. Once your logistics and power lines are connected — including the miner supplying coal — two local biomass burners are enough to jump-start the system; once the first generator kicks on, the whole plant becomes self-sustaining.

Tuning water extractors to exactly match demand

Each generator consumes 45 water per minute (180 total across four), while each Water Extractor provides 120 water per minute at 100% clock speed — confirmed by the Satisfactory Wiki — meaning two extractors at full speed would overproduce by 60 water/min. The fix is clocking both extractors down to 75%, which supplies exactly 180 water/min combined while cutting their power draw, rather than running one at 100% and the other at 50%, which wastes efficiency for no benefit.

1. Clock both extractors to 75%, not one at 100% and one at 50% cheapSplitting the reduction evenly across both extractors draws less total power than an uneven split for the same 180 water/min output. 3:31
2. Switch to a 3-extractor-per-8-generator ratio once you scale up — or keep tiling 1:2 grindAt larger scale, 3 extractors at 100% matches the Wiki's stated ratio (60 MW total) — but 4 extractors at 75% for the same 8 generators draws slightly less power (50.4 MW) for one extra building. 4:11

The video actually favors keeping the 1:2 extractor-to-generator ratio even at scale, since four extractors at 75% (50.4 MW) draws less power than three extractors at 100% (60 MW) — the tradeoff is one extra building for meaningfully better efficiency and cleaner symmetry.

Headlift and the water tower trick

Headlift is the vertical distance a pump can push fluid upward through a pipe, and per the Satisfactory Wiki, a Water Extractor provides 10 m of headlift on its own — roughly two and a half foundations of height. For taller vertical designs, the video demonstrates a water tower trick: fill a tall storage tank at the top of a structure before turning generators on, and because headlift is effectively ignored once water is already sitting at a given height within a connected pipe network, the whole plant can run without needing dedicated Pipeline Pumps, as long as the tank never runs dry.

Scaling up: from 300 MW to a 3,600 MW mega-plant

The same core ratio scales to a 48-generator, 3,600 MW plant built as three banks of 16 generators, fed by a vehicle-based logistics system where tractors haul coal from a remote mining site to truck stations at each wing. All the water in a plant this size runs through a single unified pipe network, with headlift for the entire structure provided by one water tower using the same fill-before-power-on trick described above. If you're setting up truck routes for coal delivery on 1.2, note that Update 1.2 replaced the old recorded Truck Route system with Vehicle Paths — see our Truck & Vehicle Automation guide for how that changes a remote coal-hauling setup.

1. Double the base design in place before switching to a mega-plant grindExtending the platform to 8 generators and 4 extractors gets you to 600 MW using the exact same manifold logic before you need to consider vehicle logistics or multi-wing designs. 4:11

This mega-plant design is likely enough to carry a save well into the mid-game, potentially until fuel or turbofuel power is available, without needing to build coal infrastructure anywhere else on the map.

Coal power blueprint: how to tile the design

The 4-generator, 2-extractor block is built on a 3x5 foundation footprint (lower level) topped by a 4x5 raised grid (generator level), so it tiles edge-to-edge without gaps. Save it as a Blueprint Designer blueprint at that footprint size and you can stamp out additional 300 MW blocks along a shoreline or canal exactly as far as your coal supply allows — see our Blueprint Designer guide for the exact designer sizes this fits inside. Keep the coal and water manifolds on the same side of every block so neighboring blocks can share a single supply line instead of each needing its own belt and pipe run back to the source.

Quick answers: layout, blueprints, and fixing a power shortage

If you're wondering how many water extractors you need per coal generator, the answer is the 1:2 ratio covered above — one extractor for every two generators, tuned to 75% clock speed. This is the best coal power setup for a beginner in Satisfactory because it's the simplest tutorial-friendly blueprint to automate power from a single miner: build the plant layout once, and you can copy-paste it as a foundation blueprint to extend or duplicate whenever you need to automate more power. If you're mid-game and hit a power shortage, the fastest fix isn't a new power source — it's just tiling this same coal plant layout again next to your existing one, since the design scales cleanly all the way up to the 3,600 MW mega-plant shown later in this guide.

FAQ

How many water extractors do I need per coal generator in Satisfactory? One Water Extractor for every two Coal-Powered Generators, with both extractors clocked to 75% — that's the 4-generator, 2-extractor, 300 MW block this guide is built around.

How much power does a 100% efficient coal power plant produce? It scales linearly with however many generators you build: 300 MW per 4 generators, 600 MW per 8, up to the 3,600 MW / 48-generator mega-plant covered above. There's no efficiency penalty for building bigger, since the 1:2 extractor ratio tiles cleanly at any size.

How many coal generators per water extractor? Two, at 75% clock speed — or roughly 2.666 generators per extractor if you run extractors at 100% instead (3 extractors feeding 8 generators).

How many coal generators per miner? Depends on the Miner mark and node purity — see the table above. The common case, a Mk.1 Miner on a normal node, feeds exactly 4 generators (300 MW).

Why do I need pipeline pumps for a coal power plant, and can I avoid them? You need them to restore headlift lost to vertical pipe runs — but you can skip them entirely with the water tower trick above, since headlift is ignored once water already sits at height in a connected network.

What's the most efficient water extractor clock speed for a coal power plant? 75% for the base 4-generator block, since that exactly matches 180 water/min demand with two extractors. At 8-generator scale, 4 extractors at 75% edges out 3 at 100% on power draw, though both ratios work.

Can I automate power in Satisfactory without babysitting my coal plant? Yes — once coal, water and power connections are in place and the first generator is lit (two biomass burners are enough to jump-start it), the whole plant runs itself indefinitely as long as the coal node doesn't run dry.

Sources

Core ratios verified directly against the Satisfactory Wiki's Coal-Powered Generator and Miner pages: 75 MW output, 45 m³/min water and 15 coal/min per generator at 100% clock, 120 m³/min per Water Extractor at 100% (90 m³/min at 75%), 10 m of extractor headlift, and the Mk.1/2/3 Miner output table across Impure/Normal/Pure nodes. The build itself is sourced from a Satisfactory 1.0-era tutorial video; these are foundational building stats rather than balance-patch-sensitive numbers, and they remain unchanged through Patch 1.2.2.2 — the Vehicle Paths note above is the one change relevant to this guide from the 1.2 update.

Read next

• Satisfactory Power Guide: Biomass to Nuclear — every power source compared
• Satisfactory Beginner Guide — start here if you're new
• Satisfactory Truck & Vehicle Automation Guide — Vehicle Paths in 1.2
• Satisfactory Steel Production Guide — build steel before you need nuclear