Think about it like a supercharger on a car. They consume power to do their job, but they gain you more than they consume so the net result is more power deliv

Think about it like a supercharger on a car. They consume power to do their job, but they gain you more than they consume so the net result is more power delivered to the crankshaft. A Top Fuel dragster's supercharger takes around 600 horsepower to drive at full bore, but that enables an engine that's loosely derived from (read: shares core dimensions with) a ~350HP production car to produce more power than a freight train. Sometimes you've got to spend power to make power.