this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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My air sourced heat pump keeps my house warm just fine in the Finnish winter where temperatures of -30C aren't unheard of. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I assume there's coils that'll produce the heat by electricity if nececcary, making it at worst as efficient as direct electric heating, which is what I'd use otherwise. Here like every other house has a heatpump like that and I don't remember hearing anyone ever complaining that they're not working.
The argument is bullshit in totality. But... When the supplemental electric heating coils come on, it is less efficient ON THAT DAY, than the alternative electric options. But, like I said, in totality, it's more effective over a month, and certainly better over the course of a year. It's a matter of people with an agenda cherry picking the 9 days a year in which it is less efficient and pretending that the other 354 days don't count.
I suppose if electric heat is the primary option then sure. Around here though natural gas is pretty much ubiquitous and the cost per joule is a heck of a lot lower than electricity. About $6/GJ for natural gas, compared to about $42/GJ for electricity. Would need a pretty efficient heat pump to see the cost savings in my area.
There are heat pumps now that use gas to do the supplemental heat. Those are the best possible option. They are equally efficient to a gas furnace when supplementing, and even cheaper when not.
I’m sure there’s applications where that’s true, but then you’re essentially talking about having a gas furnace plus a heat pump, so you’re installation cost is close to the sum of both systems. Energy rates vary by region, but around here electricity is about 7 times the cost of gas, so a heat pump running at a coefficient of performance around 3 would still cost twice as much to run as a natural gas furnace, it would be cheaper to just turn off the heat pump altogether and only use that “supplementary” heat.
When I was looking at new heat pumps the hybrid ones were between 500 & 1000 more than the equivalent electric ones.
It's not a sperate unit, it just has a gas heater in place of the electric supplemental coils.