Question Earthority!

“[D]oes home power generation make sense? Due to the high duty cycle and large scale of operation, it can pay to build a centralized power plant that maximizes efficiency at the cost of huge capital outlay. It is unrealistic to expect mass produced home generators to achieve the 60% efficiency achieved at the better generating stations. This holds even when you take into account transmission losses (roughly 7% on average). The answer is: home power generation does indeed make sense, even if the efficiency is only 40% (in the diesel range). That’s because the other 60% can be used as heat.” (01/31/07)