Re-Posting: NGCC Power Blocks -- EIA -- October 29, 2020

NGCC

By the way, did anyone else see this?

I'm not sure what to make of this. Will spend some time on this later. Later: see updates below the graphic. 

Link here. 

It would help if they put good/bad arrows on these charts:

• HEAT RATE: down is good;
• CAPACITY FACTOR: up is good;

 What does this mean? Link here. 

A reader explains it very, very succinctly:

If you go to the EIA site, the October 26 article (3 minute read), that accompanies that tweet briefly explains the huge benefits of a low hest rate/kilowatt generated.

Essentially, it is a measure of efficiency, specifically, how little fuel (natgas, in this case) needs to be burned in order to generate 1 kilowatt of electricity.

Lower is better.

Newer Combined Cycles are kicking butt. 

When paired with abundant, cheap fuel, this approach offers a formidable pathway for cheap, reliable electricity.

Going to the EIA link:

Recent installations of natural gas combined-cycle (NGCC) power blocks, which are sets of generators that operate together by recovering waste heat from combustion turbines and use it to generate steam that powers one or more steam turbines, demonstrate lower heat rates and higher capacity factors. 

Capacity factor (the ratio of the actual output of a generator to its theoretical maximum output over a period of time) is a metric that indicates the frequency and duration of generator dispatch. 

Heat rate is the ratio of energy consumed (in British thermal units [Btu]) to generation (in kilowatthours [kWh]) and is a metric of generation efficiency. 

Generators that are more efficient use less fuel and tend to run at higher capacity factors because of their lower cost of operation. 

This relationship is evident in the [above] chart, which shows that the capacity factors for newer NGCC power blocks, particularly those delivered in the past five years, are higher than average and their heat rates are lower than average.