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> GE boasts 62 percent efficiency with its combined cycle gas plants using its H-Class turbines That's huge! Normally generating electricity from fossil fuels
by gwbas1c 7y ago
> GE boasts 62 percent efficiency with its combined cycle gas plants using its H-Class turbines
That's huge! Normally generating electricity from fossil fuels is about 1/3rd efficient.
Further more: If we assume, with grid loss, that the whole system is 50% efficient once it reaches a home, and we pair it with an older 2.7 COE heat pump, it means that home heating with a heat pump, when using GE's new generator, is 135% efficient. (A typical gas furnace is 90-ish.)
For those who don't know: A heat pump has greater than 100% efficiency because it sucks heat out of ambient air. It cools the outside air to heat the inside.
- greglindahl 7y agoCombined cycle plants have been around for a while. Another common thing is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogeneration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogeneration, which dates back to the start of electricity production. Both are more efficient than the days when no one cared, but they still spew carbon. Your heat pump can run on wind.
- gwbas1c 7y ago> Your heat pump can run on wind It can run on anything. As pro renewable energy as I am, the switch won't happen overnight. Furthermore, pointing out that heating with a heat pump and grid electricity from natural gas is more efficient than heating directly with natural gas hopefully encourages more homes to use heat pumps now, instead of waiting for incentives that will come in the future. When I built my house, I had to really push on the contractor to get a heat pump. He wanted to do a gas furnace and still thinks I'm an environmental bozo.