Improvements to heat rate reduce fuel usage and emissions, including carbon dioxide (CO2). Heat rate improvements also increase economic power production while reducing environmental impacts, which benefits electric consumers, and the environment. We found that there were substantial differences between USEPA and USDOE's EIA reporting of annual heat rate for electric generating units (EGUs). USEPA report heat rate on a gross generation basis, whereas USDOE report heat rate on a net generation basis. Moreover, other significant differences in reporting heat rate data also exist, which make efforts to reduce heat rate difficult to measure and evaluate. This paper will review heat rate data improvements and reporting, with an emphasis on coal-fired EGUs. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers' (ASME) Research Committee on Energy, Environment, & Waste (RCEEW) was instrumental in the collection of the information provided in this paper.
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