Geothermal and Biomass Power in Satisfactory

Geothermal is the only power source in the game that needs no fuel and no water. It is also the only one whose output moves up and down on its own, which changes how you have to plan around it.

What a geyser produces

Geyser purity	Output range	Average	Count in world
Impure	50 to 150 MW	100 MW	9
Normal	100 to 300 MW	200 MW	13
Pure	200 to 600 MW	400 MW	9
Total	3,550 to 10,650 MW	7,100 MW	31

Seven thousand megawatts of average output across the map, for no fuel and no logistics. That is a substantial fraction of what most factories ever need, and it is sitting there requiring only that you build on it.

The catch is in the range column. A pure geyser swings between 200 and 600 MW — a factor of three — and it does so continuously.

Why the fluctuation matters

Power in this game is not averaged over time. If your total demand exceeds your total supply at any instant, the grid trips and everything stops.

So a geothermal generator rated at “400 MW average” cannot be treated as 400 MW of capacity. At its low point it delivers 200. If you sized your factory against the average, the grid trips every time the geyser dips.

Two ways to handle it correctly:

Size against the minimum. Treat a pure geyser as 200 MW of dependable capacity and count the rest as bonus. Conservative, simple, always works.

Pair it with buffer capacity. Power Storage buildings charge when supply exceeds demand and discharge when it falls short, which smooths exactly this kind of variation. This is the intended answer and it lets you count closer to the average.

Without one of these, geothermal is a source of intermittent, hard-to-diagnose grid trips — the kind where everything is fine when you check and broken when you are elsewhere.

Geothermal cannot be overclocked

Unlike every other generator, the Geothermal Generator has no clock speed control. You get what the geyser gives.

That also means no Power Shards are involved, and there is nothing to tune. It is the most genuinely passive building in the game: place it, connect it, walk away.

It is unlocked through the MAM

Geothermal Generators come from Caterium research in the MAM, not from a milestone. This is another entry on the list of things players miss by treating the MAM as optional.

Given that geysers are free power, unlocking this comparatively early is one of the better returns available from caterium.

Biomass Burners: not a waste of time

Thirty megawatts is small. The reasons to build them anyway:

They need no infrastructure. No water, no belts, no fuel production chain. Leaves and wood picked up while exploring go straight in.

They are your entire power supply before coal. The first hours have no alternative.

They are useful at remote outposts. A couple of burners supporting one miner is often simpler than running a power line across the map.

They accept Leaves, Mycelia, Wood, Biomass and Solid Biofuel, in ascending order of energy density. Converting raw foliage into Biomass and then Solid Biofuel gets substantially more power per trip to the forest, and the conversion is cheap.

The limitation is that they need manual feeding unless you belt fuel in, and the fuel does not renew — foliage does not regrow after harvesting. Biomass is a bridge, not a foundation.

Where each fits

Biomass: the first hours, and remote outposts where running a line is not worth it.

Geothermal: free, permanent, and worth taking every geyser you can reach. Size against the minimum or buffer it.

Coal: the first real power base. Simple, abundant, needs water.

Fuel: three times the output per building, no water, arrives with your oil setup.

Nuclear: enormous output, serious water and waste requirements.

The practical progression most factories follow is biomass to coal to fuel, with geothermal picked up opportunistically along the way whenever a geyser is near something you are already building.

Power Storage is the piece that makes geothermal work

Worth its own section, because it turns geothermal from awkward into excellent.

A Power Storage building charges from surplus and discharges when demand exceeds supply. On a grid with fluctuating geothermal input, that means the peaks fill the batteries and the troughs draw them down, and your factory never notices the variation.

Two practical points:

Storage does not create power. It smooths supply against demand over time. If your average generation is below your average demand, storage delays the trip rather than preventing it.

Charge state is visible. A storage bank that is consistently draining is telling you your generation is genuinely short, which is far easier to read than a grid that trips occasionally for no obvious reason.

For a grid running mostly on geysers, this is not optional equipment. For a grid running on coal and fuel, it is a nice-to-have that covers train acceleration spikes and Hoverpack draw.

Getting to the geysers

Geysers are distributed across the map without regard for where you built your factory, and several sit in awkward terrain — the pattern is similar to resource nodes.

Because the generator needs no fuel and no water, the only infrastructure is a power line back to your grid. That makes distant geysers far more practical than distant mining outposts: one line, no belts, no maintenance.

The habit worth forming is to take any geyser you happen to pass while doing something else. A pure geyser is 200 MW of dependable capacity for the cost of one building and some cable, and it never needs attention again.

Common mistakes

Counting geothermal at its average. The grid trips at the minimum, not the average.

Skipping caterium research. Geothermal is behind it, and geysers are free power.

Building a geothermal generator far from your grid. The power is free; the power line to reach it is not always convenient.

Treating biomass as a dead end. It is correct for the first hours and for outposts.

Expecting foliage to regrow. It does not. Biomass is finite unless you are actively gathering.