What is a heat pump?
Heat pumps are an integral part of air conditioning technology. Heat pumps transfer heat from one environment to another via refrigerant. In cooling mode, heat pumps transfer the heat in an enclosed area to the outside air, resulting in a cooling of the area in question. This is the role that heat pumps play in common refrigeration and air conditioning systems. Heat pumps, however, also allow this process to be reversed. They can pump heat extracted from the outside air indoors, allowing indoor environments to be heated as well as cooled using the same technology.
Heat pump efficiency
Heat pumps offer numerous advantages as a heating solution. one being that they can warm a room much quicker than conventional heating. They can be used in both commercial and domestic applications. They also have an important advantage in the area of efficiency. Electric fires 'manufacture' heat by electric current running through a resistance, gas fires 'manufacture' heat by burning fossil fuel. Heat pumps don't manufacture heat; they transfer it from one place to another. Heat pumps offer efficiency gains on the order of 3 or 4 to one, compared to electrical heating. Which means that for every unit of energy consumed by the heat pump three or more units of heat are gained; hence the vast energy cost savings.
Enviromental issues
As energy sustainability becomes increasingly important heat pumps are becoming more common in everyday use. They work by accessing renewable or waste energy and so displace consumption of conventional fossil fuels (gas, oil, coal). As electricity generation technologies improve, the emissions performance from the combustion of fossil fuels and renewable electricity generating capacity increases, so the greenhouse gas emissions associated with electricity consumption are reducing – making heat pumps even more environmentally beneficial.
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