Re:Analysis: Texas power outage leaves officials working pol...
by frosted-flakes on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @11:21PM
(#26175736)
Wow, I had no idea gas power plants were that inefficient. And I suppose it's a lot harder to turn natural gas into heat to produce electricity with turbines at a power plant, which is then sent to homes to turn back into heat with resistive heaters than it is to just send the natural gas straight to the homes in the first place. I didn't consider that those extra steps would add up to such a high loss.
A basic gas furnace is 80% efficient, with a nicer condensing unit being 96-98% efficient. Meanwhile most gas turbines hang out in the 32-38% efficiency range, plus transmission losses. Maybe if you’re using a heat pump and your local power plant is a triple pressure high efficiency model (~60% efficient) you might end up ahead, but for most users in most municipalities it’s actually better to burn the gas at home directly rather than at a power plant, at least for heat.