eli5: If most electronic appliances’ efficiency losses are through heat, does that mean that electric heaters are 100% efficient?

Question

Edit:

Many thanks for your input everyone!

Just to clarify, I don’t want to take into account the method of generating electricity or shipping it to the home, or the relative costs of gas and electricity. I just want to look at the heater itself! i.e. does 1500W of input into a heater produce 1500W of heat, for example? Or are there other losses I haven’t thought of. Heat pumps are off-topic.

In: 1063

Answer 1

They are, they are just very expensive at what they do. At least in Belgium electricity prices are 3x higher than gas prices (per kWh). So your 100% electric heater is still 3x more expensive than the 98% efficient gas condensation heater. For heat pumps it more or less equals out, because they are 3-500% efficient if properly tuned because they move energy from outside to inside rather than just generating it.