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Heat pumps twice as efficient as fossil fuel systems in cold weather, study finds
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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Technology
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In this context is a "heat pump" the same thing as an inverter air conditioner?
A split system.
That's what most of Australia uses and looks like the pic but Ive never heard them called a heat pump.
A split system AC is a heat pump in any context. So is a refrigerator. They're all the same technology that move energy via a refrigerant's latent heat by compressing it into a warm part and letting it expand into a cold part.
Cool, thanks. In that case it's about one month until I can't live without my heat pumps. They stop my balls from sticking to my leg.
Yeah, for some reason we renamed them to heat pump.
I suppose they can also be used to slowly heat water as well as the air, which is the main difference.
I like "heat pump". It's a very nice ELI5 name. It's a pump for heat. A water pump takes water and forces it to where it wouldn't go naturally. A heat pump does the same.
For larger homes with central heating and radiators inverter air conditioners aren't really a great solution - they are expensive (especially when you don't have/need an air conditioner in the first place), unsightly and work for more or less just one room. A heat pump is a generic term for a multitude of things, but as a replacement for central heating you'd most likely have just one outdoor unit that spews cold air and inside you'd have a large heat exchanger where you warm up the water for your central heating (and possibly warm water in general for showering and the like).
It's pretty amazing.