If they were that advanced they would have their own power sources.
And this is Star Trek, a no name poor guy had the access to build three man sized missiles capable of blowing up a star system (generations). And the reboot gave us red matter, a drop of that blew up a sun too. The Federation doesn't need a Dyson sphere.
Edit - Google says our sun outputs a total of 3.8×10^26J/sec. Per TNG's technical manual, the Enterprise's engines output 1.2×10^18J/sec just to maintain Warp 9. It's only one one-hundred-millionth the sun's value but consider how large of a solar panel it's take to replicate a warp coil which is about the size of a semi truck. DS9/Voy also introduced faster ships too.
Dilithium isn't a power source, it's used to regular the antimatter reaction. When magically rendered inert, ships don't stop flying. They blow up (plot arc in Discovery).
The theta-matrix compositor which can recrystallize dilithium even appears in the episode Relics that's the center of this topic.
I would assume recrystalizing isn't the same as generating new dilithium for additional starships. And without dilithium, there wouldn't be a power source of this type.
Could be they got so advanced that they saw that sort of problem as a small thing not worth thinking too hard about.
If they were that advanced they would have their own power sources.
And this is Star Trek, a no name poor guy had the access to build three man sized missiles capable of blowing up a star system (generations). And the reboot gave us red matter, a drop of that blew up a sun too. The Federation doesn't need a Dyson sphere.
Edit - Google says our sun outputs a total of 3.8×10^26J/sec. Per TNG's technical manual, the Enterprise's engines output 1.2×10^18J/sec just to maintain Warp 9. It's only one one-hundred-millionth the sun's value but consider how large of a solar panel it's take to replicate a warp coil which is about the size of a semi truck. DS9/Voy also introduced faster ships too.
But a warp coil requires dilithium and can't be replicated. The Romulans went around their dilithium shortage by using miniature black holes.
Dilithium isn't a power source, it's used to regular the antimatter reaction. When magically rendered inert, ships don't stop flying. They blow up (plot arc in Discovery).
The theta-matrix compositor which can recrystallize dilithium even appears in the episode Relics that's the center of this topic.
I would assume recrystalizing isn't the same as generating new dilithium for additional starships. And without dilithium, there wouldn't be a power source of this type.