Heat

Also look at Heat Pipes

Most power stations produce heat instead of power directly. To convert this heat into power you will need a generator. Before you place a power station make sure you have put down a generator to absorb its heat. Below are most of the possible ways you can connect generators to a power station. The more generators you connect the more heat that can be absorbed.

How heat works
On the right you can see that a power station pushes heat to the LEFT, TOP, RIGHT and BOTTOM. The diagonal squares do not receive any heat from the power station. Anything that is placed in the possible heat zones WILL absorb heat from the power station.

If only one generator is placed in one of those 4 squares it will absorb 100% of the heat produced. If two generators are placed in those 4 squares then they will each receive 50% of the heat of the power station. If 3 generators are placed in those 4 squares then they will each receive 33.333% of the heat of the power station. If 4 generators are placed in those 4 squares then each will receive 25% of the heat of the power station.

So if a power station puts out 100 heat, and a generator can only convert 25 heat into power then you will need 4 generators to fully absorb the heat.

If a power station puts out 100 heat and a generator can convert 100 heat then you will only need one generator.

Max Heat
Any excess heat that is not converted is added to the heat of that particular building, once the heat of the building has reached its maximum amount of heat it will explode. Many buildings offer upgrades to the max heat so that you have time to correct any possible overheating issues.

Buildings like Offices, Research Labs, Coal Mines, and others have a max heat of 1 (10 for offices) and will also explode if placed near a power station.

On the right you can see the red bar that is nearly at the top. This is the heat bar indicating there is too much heat going into that particular building.

Common Mistakes
In the image on the right you can see 3 solar cells and 3 generators, if each generator can absorb the heat of the solar cell what is the problem?

Well the issue is that one of the generators has 3 solar cells giving it heat and one of them has 2 solar cells giving it heat. This will lead those 2 generators to explode as they get too much heat. In fact if you look at the red heat bars you can see that is about to happen.

The fix is instead to do something like what is shown beneath it. Line up the power stations and make sure each power station is only touching the generators it should.