Now, if under certain conditions a heat pump puts out more thermal energy than it consumes in electrical energy, has the law of energy conservation been challenged? No, not even remotely: the additional input of thermal energy into the circulating refrigerant via the evaporator accounts for the difference in the energy equation.
Unfortunately there is one real problem. The heating capacity of a heat pump decreases as the outdoor temperature falls. The drop in capacity is caused by the lessening amount of refrigerant mass moved through the compressor at one time. The heating capacity is proportional to this mass flow rate: the less the mass of refrigerant being compressed, the less the thermal load it can transfer through the heat-pump cycle. The volume flow rate of refrigerant vapor through the single-speed rotary compressor used in heat pumps is approximately constant. But cold refrigerant vapor entering a compressor is at lower pressure than warmer vapor. Therefore, the mass of cold refrigerant and thus the thermal energy it carries is less than if the refrigerant vapor were warmer before compression.
Here, then, lies a genuine drawback of heat pumps: in extremely cold climates where the most heat is needed heat pumps are least able to supply enough heat.
1. The primary purpose of the text is to
[A] explain the differences in the working of a heat pump when the outdoor temperature changes.
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