Mechanical Power Transmission Over Distance

[concrete_car]

I've been thinking about building a windmill at the top of a nearby hill and running axles underground to a base closer to sea level, taking advantage of the windmill elevation bonus without having to build an especially tall structure. I remember hearing in the past, however, that power losses from especially large setups can be mitigated by gearing down to a lower speed before traveling the long distance, akin to electrical current being transformed to a higher voltage/lower current before being sent through long-distance transmission lines.

Is this the case? If not, should it be? Not sure how realistic it is.

[pigfood]

IME, the power loss along axles is very, very small.

But you should absolutely try out your setup in a creative world.

[MKMoose]

It is quite realistic, and it is implemented in the game. Lowering rotational speed increases torque, reducing the power loss caused by resistance.

The standard strategy is to connect the rotor (or multiple of them) to a vertical axis through a large gear, then use another large gear at the bottom to bring everything back up to base speed. This primarily serves to connect multiple power sources and split power between multiple machines, but reduced power loss is an extra benefit. If you're transferring power along a very long distance, then you could gear down even further, but it's almost always unnecessary.

Two hundred axles have the same resistance as a quern. Gear it down once, and it's 1000 axles for one regular-speed quern. It's only significant for power transfer over really long distances.