Skip to content

Factorio BlueprintsAll nuclear reactor blueprintsLargest Nuclear Power Plant? 80 GW Blueprint from 528 Reactors

Largest Nuclear Power Plant? 80 GW Blueprint from 528 Reactors

A 528-reactor experiment to see how far an infinitely tileable plant really goes.

Image of the PavelH 80 GW nuclear plant blueprint

Image of the PavelH 80 GW nuclear plant blueprint

How much power does it make? 528 reactors, 83,840 MW

83,840 MWOutput (computed)

Reactors528Heat exchangers8,480Steam turbines14,848
Reactors
528
Output (computed)
83,840 MW
Output in the design name (MW)
80,000
Heat exchangers
8,480
Steam turbines
14,848
Reactors : exchangers : turbines
528 reactors : 8480 heat exchangers : 14848 steam turbines
Fuel handling
belt-fedFuel cells arrive on a belt and inserters load them.
Size (tiles, width x height)
1567 x 388
Entity quality
uncommon
String exported by Factorio
2.0.76.0
Designer
PavelH

The name says 80 GW; this site computes 83,840 MW at normal ratings, though the plant also places uncommon-quality entities.

String exported by Factorio 2.0.76.0. Decoded and checked by this site; not test-imported in the game.

Output (computed)

The output shown is computed by this site from the blueprint itself, using normal-quality numbers from the official wiki. Each reactor makes 40 MW of heat plus another 40 MW for every fuelled reactor touching it, which is why a 2x2 block gives 480 MW and a long double row gives 160 MW per reactor minus 160 MW. A heat exchanger turns at most 10 MW of heat into steam and a steam turbine turns that steam into 5.82 MW, so the plant delivers whichever of the three totals is smallest: reactor heat, exchanger capacity or turbine capacity.

Heat exchanger and turbine ratio

A plant is balanced when its exchangers can take all the reactor heat and its turbines can use all the steam. With normal-quality buildings that is one heat exchanger for every 10 MW of heat and about 1.72 turbines per exchanger, because one exchanger makes roughly 103 steam per second and one turbine uses 60. Compare this plant's counts with that: more turbines than needed is harmless, but too few exchangers caps the output.

How fuel cells get in

Fuel cells come in on a belt and inserters load each reactor, so the plant runs without robots; feed the belt from your fuel-cell production and take spent cells out. A fuel cell burns for 200 seconds whether or not the power is used, so belt-fed designs that save fuel use circuit conditions on the inserters to load only when a reactor runs cool.

The designer says plainly this is not sensible and that fusion is the answer at this scale; it tests how far 2x2-reactor tiles with belt fuelling can extend.

Source
Output stated in the post
20,000 MW

Blueprint string

Copy the string and press Import string on the shortcut bar in the game, then paste. It was exported from the Factorio 2.0 version shown above. This site decoded it and counted the reactors, exchangers and turbines, but did not import it in the game; check the designer's notes above for water and start-up needs.

All nuclear reactor blueprints