Some highly efficient central heating can have greater than 100% efficiency
How’s that supposed to work? What values are being compared? As a general engineering principle, I thought all transformations include at least a little loss.
Just as a made up example - with a space heater, you could get 1000 watts of heat from 1000 watts of electricity, or you can move 1500 watts of heat with 1000 watts of electricity with a heat pump.
The heat pump in my home has an SCOP of 4.9 under perfect conditions and ~3.5 under normal conditions, which means 1kW of electricity in equals 3.5-4.9kW of heat out.
If they are speaking about heat pumps then they are technically correct. A heat pump uses energy to move heat from one location to another instead of converting heat from form to form. It’s the conversion that causes inefficiency.
I’m not nearly smart enough to properly explain the physics of it but there are plenty of articles and YouTube videos available if you want to go down that rabbit hole.
How’s that supposed to work? What values are being compared? As a general engineering principle, I thought all transformations include at least a little loss.
Because in the most efficient systems, you aren’t creating heat, you’re moving heat.
https://youtu.be/7J52mDjZzto
Just as a made up example - with a space heater, you could get 1000 watts of heat from 1000 watts of electricity, or you can move 1500 watts of heat with 1000 watts of electricity with a heat pump.
It’s pretty neat.
The heat pump in my home has an SCOP of 4.9 under perfect conditions and ~3.5 under normal conditions, which means 1kW of electricity in equals 3.5-4.9kW of heat out.
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https://piped.video/7J52mDjZzto
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If they are speaking about heat pumps then they are technically correct. A heat pump uses energy to move heat from one location to another instead of converting heat from form to form. It’s the conversion that causes inefficiency.
I’m not nearly smart enough to properly explain the physics of it but there are plenty of articles and YouTube videos available if you want to go down that rabbit hole.