Are Ground Source Heat Pumps Cheap To Run?
Ground source heat pumps (Geo thermal energy heating), and similarly air and water heat pumps, are generally cheaper to operate than other traditional residential heating systems. Geo thermal energy heating uses a renewable source by tapping into the free heat from the sun that has been absorbed into the ground (or air or water) so enabling this type of system to give back more energy in the form of heat than the equivalent amount of electrical energy they consume to operate. For example, in heating mode a highly efficient ground source heat pump can extract energy from the ground and transfer it to your home at a ratio of 1:4 or more. Let’s say for every 1 KW/h of electrical energy that you use to drive the heat pump, around 4 KW/h of thermal energy will be produced for use in your home. This ratio is generally given as the ‘coefficient of performance’ or ‘COP’ for heat pumps that are working in heating mode, and ‘COP’ is calculated by dividing the input KW/h into the output KW/h. In
