3 ms·
Residential sized heat pumps can do '400-500%' efficiency (i.e. 4-5kWh of heat for every kWh of electricity), so electrical heating at 100% efficiency is indeed
by hectormalot 6y ago
Residential sized heat pumps can do '400-500%' efficiency (i.e. 4-5kWh of heat for every kWh of electricity), so electrical heating at 100% efficiency is indeed inefficient. If the calculations are really valuable it could still be worth it though.
Also, what would you do in the summer?
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoMiniscule % of people have heat-pumps. In UK most people use either a gas boiler or a dumb electric heater. And you can't even install heatpump in an an apartment building without re-constructing half of it.
- _Microft 6y agoThey are slowly becoming more common here in Germany. I'd say about half of the houses in the newly developed part of town have one and a few older ones are retrofitting them as well here.
- hectormalot 6y agoToday that is true, but I think the trend will move towards a larger share in the future. Relevant anecdotes: - All newly build housing in the Netherlands must be without natural gas, thus either lower heat-grid or heat pump heating - People that use airconditioning for heating have a heat pump without being aware of it (if configured that way) Finally, for any technology early in the adoption curve, the market share - or even the growth rate (%) - today shouldn't be taken as good indicators for future development. E.g. McKinsey famously underestimated the mobile phone market by 100x that way [1] and the energy predictions on the adoption of solar manage to underestimate installed solar power _every_ year. Instead, also consider growth-of-growth and network effects as adoption grows. [1]: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/38716/did-mckinsey-co-tell-att-there-was-no-market-for-mobile-phones https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/38716/did-mckin...