Articles exploring how efficiently power plants convert primary energy into electricity, including heat rate, thermal efficiency, waste heat and technology comparisons.
Coal plants burn fuel. Nuclear reactors split atoms. Geothermal plants extract heat from underground. Yet many of them rely on the same machine to produce electricity: a steam turbine. Discover how expanding steam turns heat into mechanical power, why condensers matter almost as much as turbines, and how one remarkably adaptable technology became central to modern electricity generation.
A combined-cycle gas turbine burns natural gas once but extracts electricity in two stages: first from a gas turbine, then from a steam turbine powered by the hot exhaust the first turbine was about to throw away. That simple act of refusing to waste heat is why CCGTs can reach efficiencies around 60%—and why they still matter in a power system filling up with wind, solar, and batteries.