Is stationers going to require some systems for power management for instance certain machines having voltage limits and cables having simulated power loss?
Power units
Power is handled in watts, no simulation is done separately for amps and volts. This was done in the name of simplicity. Power is calculated on it's own thread.
Types of powered devices
Broadly we have the following categories of power usage:
Battery powered items. Use power from small power cells. Common for items (such as drills) and portable devices (such as portable scrubber).
Directly connected devices. These must be directly cabled. They may have input cables and output cables (e.g. the large battery). They may have their data connection separate from their power connection.
Appliances. These gain their power from their parent device (e.g. a bench). You directly cable the bench, and the appliance can be placed on the bench and receives power that way. This means you can move appliances around without having to rip the floor up. Example in game currently is the Microwave and the Food Processor.
Power efficiency and heat
Power generation and use is not 100% efficient. This means that, in most instances, some of the power generated/used is output into the atmosphere as heat.
Power networks
A power network has a "potential" and an "actual", both measured in watts. Each "tick" (half a second currently) the electricity thread calculates first the potential of it's network (how much power could it draw?), the requested usage (how much power does it need?), and finally the actual power provided.
If the actual power exceeds the potential power then a brownout occurs. All devices will receive a portion of the power available. Most devices will not work correctly at this point, but some will continue to work at reduced function. An example: a light will not work at all unless it has it's full power. But a battery charger will work but will just charge batteries slower.
Area Power Controllers
The best way to create separate networks is using "Area Power Controllers". These are kind of like "step down" networks. You might have a group of batteries to store your power centrally. Then you have that connected to many APCs, each providing sub networks. APCs can have (but do not require) batteries that provide them some UPS capability.
Catastrophic Power failures (not yet implemented)
All of the above is currently ingame. What is not ingame yet is power failure. This is where the actual provided energy exceeds the rating for a cable or device on the network. This will be very bad and likely cause a fire. You will protect against this by placing fuses.