Repository navigation
Codex Energy Process Heat
Many QNet plants make heat as a by-product, and many others can use heat instead of energy. Process heat moves between them through Heat Ports, measured in heat units (HU). This page explains how heat flows, who gives and who takes it, and how to set the order when a plant can send its heat two ways.
- One HU is about one E on the steam path: a boiler turns 1 HU into 1 mB of steam, a steam turbine turns 1 mB of steam into 1 E.
- Hot Coolant carries 10 HU per mB. A Heat Exchanger turns it into steam.
- Heat cannot be stored in a tank or sent through pipes. It only moves from block to block, every tick.
- A heat source offers the heat it has this tick.
- Its Heat Port hands it to the block right in front of the port's outer face: the Heat Port of another plant, a Stirling Generator, or a block of another mod that takes heat.
- The receiving plant takes what it can use; the rest stays with the source (or, for some sources, is lost or turned back).
A Heat Port works only on its outer face; how to build it into a plant is explained in Building plants. Two plants exchange heat when a Heat Port of one touches a Heat Port of the other, face to face.
Recipe: see JEI, REI or EMI.
| Source | Where the heat comes from |
|---|---|
| Electric Heater | Turns energy into heat for the port in front of it. |
| Geothermal Heat Exchanger | Earth heat. |
| Solar thermal field | Sunlight on the heliostats, through the receiver's Heat Ports. |
| Gas Turbine | Part of the exhaust heat. |
| Gas Engine | Exhaust and cooling heat. |
| Tokamak | The heat buffer (blanket and divertors). |
| Little Star | The heat of the glass shell above 100 °C. |
| Molten-Salt Store | Stored heat, up to its output limit. |
| SMES | The dump heat of a protected quench. |
| Consumer | What it does with the heat |
|---|---|
| Industrial Boiler | Boils water with it, up to 40 HU per tick for every heat exchanger tube. |
| Stirling Generator | Takes heat directly from a port or heater next to it. |
| Foundry | Uses heat instead of energy: 1 HU replaces 1 E. |
 Tunnel Furnace
|
Runs on heat only: 3,000 HU per item. |
 Chemical Plant
|
Covers part of its energy with heat. |
| Molten-Salt Store | Stores it. |
Consumers never hoard heat: each takes only as much as it can use in the next ticks.
The Tokamak and the Little Star can send their heat two ways: through the Heat Ports or into their coolant (Hot Coolant or steam). Their windows have the switch Heat first to:
- Ports (default): the coolant only gets what the Heat Ports cannot take this tick. Use this when a boiler or a store next to the plant should get as much as possible.
- Cooling: the coolant takes the heat first; the Heat Ports get what is left.
The line Heat last tick shows both shares: "To the HEAT ports: …" and "To the coolant: …".
Tip
Heat for the night Put a Molten-Salt Store between a solar thermal field and a boiler: by day the receiver charges the salt, at night the salt keeps the boiler running.
Blocks of other mods that take heat through QNet's heat interface receive heat from QNet's sources, and QNet's Heat Ports accept heat from their sources. The rules are the same: face to face, every tick.
Note
Heat is not energy Heat Ports never take or give energy, and energy ports never take heat. A plant that uses heat still needs its energy ports for everything else.