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Heat pumps twice as efficient as fossil fuel systems in cold weather, study finds
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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Technology
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"Generally" is the wrong way to approach this. What you should be looking at is the specific capabilities of the actual system that you are considering installing. Some of them can go much colder.
If the Mitsubishi FE18 isn't efficient in your climate... then don't buy that unit. Simple.
If it's really cold where you are... then you could consider a ground source heat pump instead one that uses air as a heat source. The ground doesn't get anywhere near cold to have efficiency issues no matter where you are in the world and ground source heat pumps don't cost all that much... though they do require a bit of digging.
Also, if your heat pump is inefficient for a couple really cold weeks a year... oh well. You're still coming out ahead because it's very efficient the other 50 weeks a year. It's not like they stop working at extremely cold temperatures, they just produce a bit less heat than you might like for the amount of power consumed. Maybe they're "only" 80% efficient instead of 600% efficient... you know what else is 80% efficient? Heating with gas.