Based on what the guy said in the video it sounds like his driveway snow melter is resistive electric. That means the coefficient of performance is 1.0: you get 1 watt of heat in the driveway for every watt of electricity you consume.
We already consider that to be unacceptable for household heating. With a modern heat pump you can achieve a COP above 4.0, even when ambient temperatures are below freezing. So why not have a heat pump driving refrigerant lines under the driveway surface? With COP 4.0 you’re 4 times the efficiency of electric resistive heating which means your costs are 1/4:
Based on what the guy said in the video it sounds like his driveway snow melter is resistive electric. That means the coefficient of performance is 1.0: you get 1 watt of heat in the driveway for every watt of electricity you consume.
We already consider that to be unacceptable for household heating. With a modern heat pump you can achieve a COP above 4.0, even when ambient temperatures are below freezing. So why not have a heat pump driving refrigerant lines under the driveway surface? With COP 4.0 you’re 4 times the efficiency of electric resistive heating which means your costs are 1/4:
$26.33/4=$6.58
Now that is a lot more reasonable!