Significance of heat pump coefficient of performance

This paper deals with the load aspects and economic aspects of three types of residential heat pump systems which employ supplementary heat sources. It contains illustrations of their load characteristics over a wide range of annual COP (coefficient of performance), depicts relationships of the relative costs to serve these loads from long-range and short-range considerations, and provides, as a reference, load characteristics and economic data for three comparable types of resistance heating systems with their complementary electrical cooling loads, and a band of competitive operating costs to customers using gas for heating and cooling.