Energy Production in Project Aura seems to be a topic where most of the players sooner or later struggle with. The aim of this guide is to help the player to identify the biggest energy consumers and to give them a hint when to start upgrading energy production to reduce or prevent "blackouts".

The numbers in this guide are rough estimates as the actual energy consumption depends heavily on the building modules and the skills/ranks of the colonists you employ. For the sake of simplicity I will use junior colonists with average skills (7.5 on each skill) and 100 morale (factor 1). You will need to adjust the numbers accordingly if you want to have exact numbers for your colony.


The energy consumption of a blueprint is tied to the "Production Speed" of the blueprint. The faster the blueprint produces, the faster the energy is deducted at the beginning of each production run. If a blueprint has a production cycle of 2, it will consume its energy required twice as fast than a blueprint with a production cycle of 4.
Production speed is calculated as "work cycles required / sum over all colonists ([<colonist.attrib1> + <colonist.attrib2>] * colonist.morale)"
A 200-work blueprint with 4 "average joe juniors" with values above would have a production speed PS = 200 / 4* ([7.5+7.5]*1.00) = 3.33 cycles. Obviously the lower the PS value, the faster the blueprint.


The next level of complexity is, when the blueprint with a production cycle of 2 consumes 5 energy per run and the one with 4 consumes 20 energy per run. Obviously the second one would consume more energy than the first. Therefore we define the Average Energy Consumption as "Energy per run / Production Speed". blueprint 1 would have an AEC of 5 energy / 2 cycles = 2.5 E/C, blueprint 2 would have an AEC of 20 energy / 4 cycles = 5 E/C.


Some final words on energy production. The energy production is quite straight-forward at the moment: Each cycle your energy value is raised by the total production value, which is reduced by the dome consumption. In your energy overview you find on the right side two values: xxx/yyy. xxx is the energy production per cycle, yyy your battery capacity.

As long as the AEC of your colony does not raise higher than your energy production, you should not run out of power.

The numbers presented here are not a complete list, but merely the highlights. The entries represent building modules and not complete facilities. For a seaweed farm with fattener and dryer you would need to add both values to get the energy consumption for the whole facility. All entries with asterisks (*) can have variable numbers. The number shown is for one possible production.

It is no surprise, that the most energy consuming building is the omega recovery with scanner(omega hangar), whopping a 30 energy / cycle. This value goes even more up if you use a Super Engineer Pilot ( to around 75 energy / cycle for the "extract..." blueprint only(!) ).
Energy-wise the best ship is at the moment (2.66) the Delta Ship, which offers a nice balance between a big cargo hold and energy consumption. Another interesting observation: one omega vehicle equals to almost exact three alpha vehicles - when you compare them with all modules added. If you neglect scanners, the ratio moves to: one omega equals two alpha.

For big energy saves remove scanners on all vehicles.

The second biggest, obvious energy consumer is the tomato farm. The exorbitant energy consumption per run (800) is the result of an attempt to balance the initial farming (tomato seeds are purchaseable) with lower fertilizer requirements (1500 vs. 2500 for other similar crops) against the mid- and endgame farming. Therefore here the obvious solution is to switch to a less energy intensive crop like carrots or potatos.

The next big energy consumers are all quite mandatory for a successful colony ( recycler, desalinator and seed recovery ) therefore there is no way around them. Especially recycler and desalinator have quite high maintenance requirements, so their effective energy consumption must be raised by the energy consumption of one maintenance array - which ends in an energy consumption of 10~12 energy / cycle. My usual desalinator plant ends up with around 39~40 Energy per cycle (3 desalinator + 3 maintenance).

The other buildings comsume small amounts of energy, therefore you should not run into bigger issues after adding them (ofc, if you'd start building like 200 assemblies you'd see an effect...)