Yes, it's comparing apples to oranges, or the efficiency of the whole steam turbine plant (electricity/fuel) vs just a single component (electricity/heat). Is

Yes, it's comparing apples to oranges, or the efficiency of the whole steam turbine plant (electricity/fuel) vs just a single component (electricity/heat). Is the comparison fair? Well it's tricky but I'd say yes, the generation of just heat from fuel is normally highly efficient so electricity/heat should be similar to electricity/fuel in the second case. However in a turbine generating plant it's not plain heat but it needs to be converted to steam and moved around, so there are many more loses. That paragraph in [1] is referring to: "Isentropic steam turbine efficiency refers to the ratio of power actually generated from the turbine to what would be generated by a perfect turbine with no internal flowpath losses using steam at the same inlet conditions and discharging to the same downstream pressure." It specifically says not to confuse them: "Turbine efficiency is not to be confused with electrical generating efficiency, which is the ratio of net power generated to total fuel input to the cycle." [1] https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-07/documents/catalog_of_chp_technologies_section_4._technology_characterization_-_steam_turbines.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-07/documents/ca...