Performance Legibility: The Measurement Asymmetry Between Combustion and Electrified Industrial Heat

Industrial heat produced by combustion possesses a property that is rarely stated: the fuel invoice also serves as the performance record. A gas meter counts molecules, molecules carry a fixed energy content determined by chemistry, and metered consumption therefore implies delivered energy within a narrow margin. Electrification removes this property. In resistance, induction, dielectric and plasma heating, the meter records electrical input, while delivered process heat depends on conversion efficiency, load profile and process losses that vary during operation. The measurement that combustion supplied as a by-product must now be engineered deliberately. This note names that property performance legibility, defines it, and distinguishes it from efficiency. It then shows the asymmetry expressed in current regulation. The European Union Innovation Fund heat auctions require process heat production to be verified by an independent third party as a condition of payment, and, for resistance, electromagnetic, dielectric, shockwave and plasma heating, determine that production by multiplying electricity consumption by an assumed conversion efficiency rather than by measuring it. The verified quantity is therefore not measured. The argument is offered as a diagnosis. It does not propose a protocol.