Quote:
Originally Posted by Footer
An air conditioner is a heat pump. I can't imagine anyone wants to live in Florida without one of those.
Heat pumps use a compressor to move the heat. The higher the temperature difference, the higher the pressure ratio and the energy required. As you can imagine, if you want to keep your house at 70 and it's 10° outside it will take a lot more pressure than if it's 50°. It's not easy to design a compressor that works efficiently with a big range of pressures.
One way that works well technically is to pump water through pipes into the ground, which will heat the water. The compressor then has a fairly constant 50-60° temperature to work with. You have to bury a lot of pipes deep enough to collect the heat from the earth - not so deep actually unless you don't have a big yard in which case you have to dig a deep vertical hole. Don't know the cost but not cheap compared to conventional technology.
Tesla is using a heat pump for heating their Model 3 and Y. Maybe their technology can be used in home units.
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Yes, the system you refer to in paragraph 3 is a water cooled condenser, which takes advantage of the constant ground temperature to transfer heat to and from the refrigerant. It is more energy efficient, but very expensive. Almost all residential heat pumps used in the country have air cooled condensers, which are much less expensive and use air, not water, for heat transfer.