У специалистов по heating pumps какой-то свой мир с отдельным сайтом, где они соревнуются в эффективности своих изделий.

Michael de Podesta, a retired physicist in England, has a house with solar panels, external wall insulation, and a heat pump running at a SCOP of 3.5. Although that’s not nearly as high as Ritchie’s and others’, it doesn’t really matter, because the running costs for de Podesta’s system are tiny—his annual electricity bill, for his heat pump and all other appliances, is a mere 250 pounds. That’s possible even while keeping his property at an internal temperature of 20° Celsius.

Last year, de Podesta wrote a blog post entitled “COP Envy Is Pointless,” in which he explained that when a house is extremely well insulated—as his is—the heat pump’s SCOP will actually fall, because it is largely being used to heat hot water, especially in the spring and summer. Since people tend to heat their hot water to 50° Celsius or more, the heat pump has to work relatively hard, albeit briefly, and its efficiency can appear stymied.