How is it that a machine (like a heat pump) can consume 1kw of power and produce an amount greater than that of heat? What am I misunderstanding?
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It’s about what you’re measuring as input and output. It has a specific definition in the case of a heat pump, and that is the change in temperature it causes.
A resistive heater is basically 100% efficient, because the energy in the electricity is basically ALL converted into heat energy. Input = 10, output =10, therefore efficiency of 1.
A heat pump is just moving around heat that is already there. It uses a little bit of energy to do that, let’s say input of 5. And it still outputs 10, so an efficiency of *2*.
Now imagine heating a room with natural gas. Basically the only energy you’d measure as input would be the ignition, and you could just keep burning more and more gas to get more output and up your efficiency as high as you want.
You aren’t creating energy, it’s just that the inputs of all these methods don’t take into account where all the energy is coming from, just how much energy is consumed in operation. The efficiency of natural gas doesn’t care about the process of natural gas forming, but just what it takes us to move it around and ignite it.
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