477MW reactor with real-time power output indicator.
There are many reactor designs with accumulator charge or steam buffer level indicators, but I wanted to create a true power output indicator - one that follows in-game power production graph as closely and with as little delay as possible.
The resulting system is capable of visualizing even sharp peaks in power draw generated by laser turrets engaging enemy, while maintaining reasonable accuracy and resolution. The indicator can display 83 discrete states, corresponding to resolution of about 1.2% of total possible power output, or ~6MW if max output is 477MW.
The video depicts a power plant supplying electricity to perimeter of a medium sized factory. The perimeter generates a base load of 151MW and additional spikes due to laser turrets engaging natives. The indicator, by means of lights and nixie tubes (only non-vanilla part of the setup) shows percentage of total installed capacity begin used at any given moment, and is designed to follow power production graph as closely as possible.
As for the use cases, well, it's nice to look at :) The indicator can easily be tied to an alarm warning about high power usage before any brownouts occur. Also the indicator itself doesn't have to be located at the power plant site. Just stamp a copy of the lights or nixie tubes in a more convenient place and connect it to power plant by means of red or green cable.
For the indicator to work properly, the steam tanks must be filled. Thus it may take some time after staring the plant before the indicator goes online. After that the system should function continuously without intervention.