Core Idea
Running out of power is one of the most common ways a Satisfactory factory grinds to a halt, and a stable grid is the foundation everything else is built on. This guide brings together popular community advice on power progression, inspired by Drawing Xaos's video "BEST power guide for Satisfactory 1.1," and walks through every major generator type in the order most pioneers unlock them, from the first Biomass Burner to a full Nuclear Power Plant.
Checklist:
- Remember that power is shared across the whole connected grid, not per machine
- Know the MW cost of your current machines before adding more
- Keep a backup generator type ready before switching to a new power source
1. Biomass Burners: Your First Power Source
One constructor making 60 solid biofuel per minute supports 450 MW of installed burner capacity while the whole setup only draws 12 MW, which is the return that makes biomass worth automating.
Biomass Burners run on almost anything organic, from leaves and wood to Alien Carapace later on, making them the fastest way to get a small factory running before proper ore-based power comes online. They are inefficient at scale but need almost no infrastructure to set up.
Checklist:
- Build 2-4 Biomass Burners near your Hub to power early machines
- Feed them with collected leaves, wood, or Biomass
- Plan to replace them with Coal Power as soon as possible
2. Coal Power: The Mid-Game Standard
A single pure coal node on a Mk.2 miner feeds exactly sixteen generators at 75 MW each, so the whole build lands on 1,200 MW before any power shards.
Coal Generators are the backbone of most early-to-mid game factories, offering a huge jump in output per generator compared to biomass. Each one needs a steady supply of Coal and Water, so plants are best placed near both a coal node and a lake or river.
Each generator eats 15 coal per minute on a 4 second burn cycle at 100% clock, which is the per-machine number you scale the belt and pipe network from.
Checklist:
- Find a site with a coal node close to a water source
- Build Water Extractors to supply coolant to each generator
- Build Coal Generators in banks of 4-8 for easier belt balancing
3. Fuel and Turbofuel Generators
The same 500 MW generator burns Turbofuel at 7.5 m3 per minute instead of 20, so switching fuels cuts your refinery throughput requirement by nearly two thirds.
Rocket Fuel is the only recipe that outputs more fluid than it takes in, and the 0-250% overclock slider with three shards is where that multiplier gets pushed further.
Once oil processing is online, Fuel and Turbofuel Generators provide dramatically more power per generator than coal, at the cost of a longer production chain through Refineries and Blenders. Turbofuel in particular offers one of the best power-per-generator ratios before nuclear.
Rocket Fuel burns at 4.167 m3 per minute against 20 for plain fuel, which is why the endgame plant produces more power from far less liquid and far less floor space.
Checklist:
- Set up Oil Extraction and Refineries to produce Fuel
- Upgrade to Turbofuel once Diluted Fuel/Packaged Fuel recipes are unlocked
- Size fuel generator banks to match refinery throughput to avoid waste
4. Nuclear Power: Maximum Output
All three rod types drive the same 2,500 MW plant but at wildly different consumption rates, so the rod you choose decides how much of the waste chain you actually have to build.
Even fully overclocked a manufacturer only turns out one uranium fuel rod per minute, and the 50-cell input is the real reason nuclear takes so long to stand up.
Nuclear Power Plants deliver the highest output per building in the game, but demand careful planning around Uranium or Plutonium fuel rods and, critically, safe handling of Nuclear Waste. Treat waste disposal as part of the build from day one rather than an afterthought.
Pushing a plant to 250% turns 2,500 MW into 6,250 MW but doubles rod draw to 0.5 per minute and pumps out uranium waste at 25 per minute, which you cannot sink and must reprocess.
Checklist:
- Automate Uranium mining and Encased Uranium Cell production
- Build Nuclear Power Plants with dedicated waste storage or processing
- Keep Nuclear Waste away from paths pioneers walk regularly
5. Balancing the Grid and Avoiding Brownouts
Geothermal output swings continuously instead of holding a flat rating, so it can never be counted as firm capacity when you size a grid against brownouts.
Brownouts, where machines run slower due to partial power loss, are often worse than a full blackout because they are harder to diagnose. Building slightly more capacity than needed and watching the grid load percentage in the map view helps catch problems early.
Max Consumption, not current consumption, is the figure that trips a brownout, so keep capacity above the 232,873.9 MW line rather than the 170,336 MW your factory happens to be drawing.
Checklist:
- Check the Power tab on the map screen regularly as the factory grows
- Build 10-20% more generation capacity than calculated demand
- Use Power Switches to isolate sections of the grid for maintenance
6. Power Storage and Priority Switches
Two augmenters give 1,200 MW rather than the 1,100 MW you would expect, because each one applies its 10% boost to the combined grid total instead of to itself.
Power Storage units bank excess electricity during low-demand periods and release it during spikes, smoothing out fluctuations from intermittent machines like Particle Accelerators. Priority Power Switches decide which sections stay online first if generation ever dips.
The augmenter contributes a flat 500 MW plus a percentage of everything else on the circuit, which on a large grid is worth 68,235 MW from a single building and doubles to 20% with an Alien Power Matrix.
Checklist:
- Add Power Storage near fluctuating loads such as Particle Accelerators
- Set Priority Power Switches so critical production stays online during shortages
- Recharge Power Storage during off-peak periods before big draws
Sources
This guide is inspired by the YouTube video "BEST power guide for Satisfactory 1.1" by Drawing Xaos.
Frequently asked
Is nuclear power worth it in Satisfactory?
One nuclear power plant gives 2,500 MW on 240 cubic metres of water a minute and 0.2 fuel rods a minute. Overclocked it burns 0.5 rods for 6,250 MW but demands 600 cubic metres of water. The real cost is the waste chain, uranium waste to plutonium to ficsonium, the only rod that produces no waste at all. The creator's nuclear setup took about four months to build versus eight hours for an equivalent rocket fuel plant.
How many coal generators can one pure coal node run?
A Mk2 miner on a pure coal node yields 240 coal per minute, which feeds 16 coal generators at 75 MW each, so 1,200 MW per pure node before any power shards. Water is the fiddly part: every generator drinks 45 cubic metres a minute, meaning three extractors at 120 each cover eight generators. Inject that water at several points along the line rather than merging it all into one pipe.
What is the best power source in Satisfactory?
Rocket fuel burned in fuel generators, by the creator's reckoning. A generator consumes rocket fuel at 4.167 per minute against 20 for regular fuel, so the same oil stretches vastly further. His endgame build takes two pure oil lines, 1,000 nitrogen gas, 750 sulfur and a little iron to make 150,000 MW in a footprint smaller than some players' whole bases. Ionized fuel exists but he calls it not worth it comparatively.
Why does my 300 pipe not carry 360 water to my coal plant?
The 300 cubic metre limit applies to each pipe segment between two connection points, not to the network as a whole. Three extractors at 120 each cannot be merged into one line and then split back out, because that line still only moves 300 from A to B. Feed the water into the manifold at multiple separate points so no single segment ever has to carry more than 300.
How does the Alien Power Augmenter boost actually stack?
One augmenter generates 500 MW and adds a 10 percent boost to the grid, showing 550 MW on its own. Two generate 1,000 MW and boost 20 percent, which is why a pair reads 1,200 rather than 1,100, a number the creator visibly trips over on camera. Feeding one an Alien Power Matrix at 5 per minute doubles its boost to 20 percent, but he calls the matrices a waste of resources.