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Heat Pumps are trending in 2022
Why?
Heat pumps number are growing exponentially
Heat pumps became a trend this year. The IEA released two reports on Heat Pumps this second semester of 2022, while the New York Times last week published an article titled: Germans Have Seen the Future, and It’s a Heat Pump.
Why?
Before dwelling on the whys, let’s begin with what a heat pump is.
What is a heat pump?
Functionally, a Heat Pump works as an energetic lever that pushes heat from one side to another.
A Heat Pump does not generate heat. It captures existing heat and redirects it, which increases its energy efficiency.
Heat pumps loophole the law of conservation of energy
Or sort of.
When we heat things, we usually convert one form of energy into another: thermal energy. For instance, a gas boiler converts chemical energy locked in natural gas (methane) by combustion with oxygen into heat.
When we do this, because of the law of energy conversion the best theoretically efficiency possible is 100%: A ratio of 1 to 1, at . For each unit kWh or BTU of natural gas, we get a kWh or BTU of heat.
