I thought the old heat pump/air conditioner myths had been busted long ago.
In e.g. the Netherlands and Germany people buy heat pumps (of which air conditioners are a subset) to save money and the environment.
It's all about Coefficient Of Performance. A modern reversible unit heats and cools two to five times as efficiently as comparable (resistive; COP=1) electrical heating.
In most of Europe, it's efficient enough to run on rooftop solar energy for half to three quarters of the year. Combined with decent insulation your net power usage can be very low indeed. Some of the newest ambitious house designs being built today even hit net zero. That wouldn't be possible without an aircon/heat pump as part of the design.
There's also a strategic angle. Do you want to heat your home with gas that's ever more tricky to come by, or would you prefer efficient electric heating that can come from any source including preferably renewables?
And of course the summer bonus: If you do have solar panels, you get to cool your home almost for free in summer, since summer solar production happens to coincide with summer heat.
My neighborhood (wollishofen) is a bit infamous for all of the old construction being torn down and being replaced with buildings like ours. But those old places are heated with oil, they're leaky wood construction, they have no option for cooling because there are no vents. Think buildings from the 1800s to early 1950s.
I didn't read the article - tired of all the American articles in the press promoting ac for some reason.
Separately, everybody I personally know (Northeast US) considers 26 C indoors to be hot (not warm - hot). It's amazing to me that people can feel temperature so differently.
That said, a minisplit is cheaper to purchase and install, is easier to retrofit on an existing home, and still has a CoP well over 1. This is why I think the semantic debate is a distraction when there's practical problems to be solved. I'd think we'd want all our homes electrically heated and cooled with CoP>1.
The debate should be between heat pump technology and older heating methods, not necessarily between cousins.
Ductless mini split style heat pumps are a common retrofit option for older buildings without vents aren't they?
> I didn't read the article - tired of all the American articles in the press promoting ac for some reason.
When a heat pump is used for cooling it's effectively the same as an AC. The main difference AFAIU is that a heat pump can reverse for heating as well. I think when Americans promote AC they probably consider a heat pump to be just another AC variant.
Plus no one has wooden floors. We have cement/epoxy floors. Some neighbors have a wood laminate that's probably mostly epoxy. I don't think you can even get wood floors anymore here. Walls are cement/plaster. Ceilings too.i guess the doors are wood.
I have a gas fired hydronic heating system but I still need AC for cooling(mixture of traditional and mini-split style units due to retrofitting requirements).
I'm also located in a high altitude location but for AC alternatives here we would typically see something like a swamp cooler.
So it's actually a hydronic heating/cooling system? I don't think those systems are typically referred to as heat pumps generally.
Because it literally saves lives during heatwaves?
so the same words for people in EU:
"If hundreds of millions of European citizens have the same summer air-conditioning habits as Americans and Asians do right now, then all of us are in for a very miserable time. The planet—and its power grids—just can't sustain it."
Less people alive being good for the environment is maybe their logic?