Comment by dudus

The article tries to explain the difference between primary, final and useful energy to justify why moving to renewables would be easier than at first glance. But I just don't feel like I got convinced in the end. If anything I'm more confused now than before. In special this part about air conditioners being 300% efficient sounds to me like maybe they don't know what they are talking about.

   “Electrical devices can sometimes offer higher than 100% efficiency,” said BNEF analyst Matthias Kimmel. That might seem odd. How can there be more energy as output than input? But that’s exactly what heat pumps and air conditioners do. They use electricity to shift heat from the outside to inside, or vice-versa, and typically provide three units of energy service for one unit of energy input, meaning an efficiency of 300%.