316
Heat pumps twice as efficient as fossil fuel systems in cold weather, study finds
(www.theguardian.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
316 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37720 readers
514 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
It can go down to -30C (-22f) sometimes or even below that
Are you intimately familiar with the inner workings of your heatpump? Nearly all heatpumps in a cold climate have backup heat built in and it would automatically switch to backup when it gets too cold outside. -30C is well into the too cold category for it to function as a heatpump alone
Yeah I have no idea. The alternative would be electric radiators anyways so in most cases that wouldn't make a difference anyways. Temperatures that low are quite rare - maybe just a handful of nights a year. Generally it stays around -10C
Which makes the argument that heat pumps don't work in the cold completely wrong from a user perspective.
Yeah averages are way higher than that. My point just was that saying they don't work in cold climates isn't quite true. Yes, there are locations with way colder climates than this but if Finland isn't considered a "cold climate" then I don't know what is.
Heat pumps are super common here. Many houses just have a electric resistance heating so people switch to heat pumps to save on electricity.
Some of the stations in Antarctica use heat pumps. They have been proven to work effectively at -53°C (-64°F) and do so reliably.
Are they more efficient at more reasonable temperatures? Yes. But they still work even when it's very cold outside.
How well a heat pump works in cold temperatures obviously depends what temperatures it was designed to operate at. Don't waste your money on a model that is designed to operate in a different climate. In fact a lot of heat pumps aren't even capable of heating at all - they can only output cold air (which they can do even if it's stinking hot outside by the way).