This is not necessarily true. A power plant is only like 40% efficient at turning gas into electricity, but fuel cells are 40-50% efficient. This isn’t like comparing a car to a power plant which has a relatively inefficient internal combustion engine.
In practical terms, a therm of gas has about 30kWH of heat energy and costs $2.27 in California, for example. That’s $0.075 per kWh. Fuel cells are something like 40-50% efficient at converting gas into electricity and can even recover the rest as heat..so say it costs you $0.15 per kWh. That’s almost 50% cheaper than PG&Es Tier2 for residential electricity, and gas does not have the same issues with brownouts and power cuts, and you get 50% of the power back as heat. Fuel cells are silent, portable, and unobtrusive, and can scale to demand with extreme efficiency (Unlike power plants). Personally, if they were available I would seriously consider one.
In practical terms, a therm of gas has about 30kWH of heat energy and costs $2.27 in California, for example. That’s $0.075 per kWh. Fuel cells are something like 40-50% efficient at converting gas into electricity and can even recover the rest as heat..so say it costs you $0.15 per kWh. That’s almost 50% cheaper than PG&Es Tier2 for residential electricity, and gas does not have the same issues with brownouts and power cuts, and you get 50% of the power back as heat. Fuel cells are silent, portable, and unobtrusive, and can scale to demand with extreme efficiency (Unlike power plants). Personally, if they were available I would seriously consider one.