Cities: Skylines 2

Cities: Skylines 2 simulates the creation of a modern city, which is why the three essential services are roads, water, and energy. Without a working power network, no one will even bother showing up to inhabit a new city.

Because of all this, Cities: Skylines 2 helpfully gives players an in-game tutorial about how to set up a power network and create connections between high-voltage and low-voltage power lines. This tutorial is helpful, but some players may still have questions about how to fully power a city.

Power Plants and Transformers

Cities Skylines 2 Energy Coal Plant — The small coal plant is the starting fossil fuel energy source in Cities: Skylines 2.

When players start a new game with none of the cheats turned on, they can choose between a small coal plant or a set of wind turbines to power their city. Players can then spend development points to unlock more efficient and less polluting options like a natural gas power plant, solar farms, and nuclear energy.

Each power plant has two power nodes: a low-voltage node that powers the city, and a high-voltage node that can connect to other power plants, transformers, and outside connections. In the Electricity info view, low-voltage connections are yellow and orange while high-voltage connections (and power sources) are blue.

Transformer stations are a special kind of building that come with the two power nodes but don't generate any power of their own. Players can use transformer stations to connect the high-voltage outside connection to the low-voltage lines that run under the streets and import all their power, but doing so is more expensive in the long run compared to any kind of local power generation. The one big upside is that transformer stations are cheap to maintain and only produce a little noise pollution.

Roads and Bottlenecks

Cities Skylines 2 Energy Bottleneck — An energy bottleneck caused by a poorly made road network in Cities: Skylines 2.

Setting up a power network is very easy, because a new feature that wasn't in the original game is that almost every road type carries power, water, and sewage lines buried beneath the asphalt. So long as a building sits next to a road (and almost all of them have to sit next to a road), it'll get a low-voltage power connection from the road.

However, power lines can only carry so much energy at once. If the demand on a single power line exceeds its capacity, it'll create a bottleneck. For instance, in the image above, a single road leads from the power plant to the rest of the city. That's too much demand for a single road cable, and so parts of the city will start suffering from brownouts even though the power plant produces far more energy than the city needs.

There are several ways to fix this bottleneck:

Build a low-voltage electric cable from a road in front of the bottleneck to a road behind it. This way power has more than one path it can travel along to reach every destination.
If the bottleneck is right in front of the power plant (like in the image), build a transformer in another part of the city and connect it to the plant with a high-voltage power line.
Build another road that leads from the power plant to the city. This can act as an electric cable and may also improve the city's traffic situation.

One thing that doesn't work is a road upgrade. Wide and narrow roads both carry the same amount of energy. The one exception is the highway:

Cities Skylines 2 Energy Bottleneck Highway — The reason for a bottleneck is the highway in Cities: Skylines 2.

Small, medium, and large roads all carry power, water, and sewage, but highways carry nothing but vehicles. Players can see this in the road construction menu where three colored pipes appear beneath most regular roads but not below any kind of highway. The image above is the same as the earlier one, and players who compare them can clearly see that the highway doesn't have a power line beneath it.

There are ways to get around this problem. First, players can build electric cables that bridge the gaps created by highways. Second, players can buy the Advanced Road Services development. One of the upgrades it unlocks is streetlights, and any highway with streetlights on it will carry power along its length. However, players should keep in mind that this upgrade doesn't also add water and sewage.

Something else to note is that high-voltage lines can also suffer from bottlenecks. If this happens, players should add more transformers and possibly more outside connections to the network. To build an outside connection, players must buy enough map tiles to reach the edge of the playable area, and then build a power line that touches the edge. Players should see an arrow appear above the edge of the power line if the connection is valid.

How to Connect Wind Turbines

Cities Skylines 2 Energy Wind Turbine — A wind turbine connection in Cities: Skylines 2.

Wind turbines have a unique way of connecting to the power grid. Unlike power plants and transformers, they don't have a high-voltage connection. The image above shows a buried high-voltage power line beneath the turbine, but the game considers this line "unconnected." Instead, wind turbines only generate low-voltage energy, and they need a low-voltage connection.

If that wasn't enough, wind turbines also need that connection to be underground. While electric cables can connect to road networks by starting nearby, the only way to connect a wind turbine is through the low-voltage node buried beneath its mast. Players can then bring the electric cable above ground (like in the image), but the connection has to start underground. To build underground cables and power lines, players should lower the elevation in the tool menu to a negative number.

Finally, don't forget about bottlenecks when building wind farms. Be sure to build a new electric cable for each set of turbines, and connect them to different parts of the road network if possible.

Cities: Skylines 2 is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

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