If efficiency for electric devices is defined as how well it converts electric power into the desired effect, the rest usually being heat, aren’t electric heaters 100% efficient? If i had a 99% efficient heater, what undesired form of energy would the 1% go to? I see a lot of electric heaters being marketed as “way more efficient than others”.
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100% efficiency is not a good number for heating with electricity. It is what you can get if you just use a resistive element.
There are more efficient ways to heat something, it is but using electricity to move heat on a heat pump. An AC and a refrigerator are heat pumps. A heat pump you use to heat up a house is an AC in reverse and many systems can be used in either direction.
You move the heat from outside air, ground, bedrock or water into the house. The source can be colder than the inside temperature. Taking the heat from something that is not the outside air result in a source that have a relative stable temperature all around the year.
The efficiency depends on the diffrence between the in and outside. It can be 500% for a good system and not to cold outside conditions.. So you get out 5x the same amount of heat compared to if you use use a resistive heater.
So heating something with electricity is one case where 100% efficient is not very god at all.
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