On the figures available for Prince Edward Island, a heat pump costs less to run than electric baseboard: C$24.31 per million Btu of heat delivered, against C$57.71. The missing comparison is a gas furnace, because no natural gas price came with the data. That number has to come from the utility serving your street. This is running cost for the same amount of heat, not a yearly bill and not the price of the equipment.
The short answer for Prince Edward Island
Electric baseboard turns each kilowatt-hour into exactly one kilowatt-hour of heat. A heat pump moves heat instead of making it, so each kilowatt-hour brings in more than it uses. At the ENERGY STAR minimum of 8.1 HSPF2, the seasonal coefficient of performance is about 2.4. That means roughly two and a half units of heat for every unit of electricity, averaged over a whole heating season.
Run through the average residential electricity price, that gap is large. Computed from Hydro-Québec’s price comparison, ENERGY STAR efficiencies and the standard 3,412 Btu per kilowatt-hour conversion, baseboard comes to C$57.71 per million Btu and the heat pump to C$24.31. The heat pump is the cheapest to run here, by C$33.40 per million Btu over resistance heat.
If your house heats with electric baseboard, the heat pump is the cheaper system to run on every figure we have. The comparison with gas is a different matter. A furnace’s running cost depends on the local gas price and the furnace’s efficiency rating, and neither is in hand. Ask the utility for the delivered price, then put it on the same footing: dollars per million Btu of heat that actually reaches the rooms.
What each option costs to run in Prince Edward Island
| System | Efficiency used | Cost per million Btu delivered |
|---|---|---|
| Electric resistance (baseboard) | 100% | C$57.71 |
| Heat pump | 8.1 HSPF2 (seasonal COP about 2.4) | C$24.31 |
| Gas furnace | Depends on the unit | No gas price in our data; ask the local utility |
All figures are in Canadian dollars. The electricity price behind them is 19.69 cents per kWh, the average residential price before taxes at 1,000 kWh a month, measured in Charlottetown under rates in effect April 1, 2025. It comes from Hydro-Québec’s comparison of electricity prices in North American cities. That is a city average, useful for comparing fuels, and it will not match your bill line for line.
The efficiency side comes from U.S. ENERGY STAR, which sets 8.1 HSPF2 as the minimum for ducted split systems and single-package units, and 8.5 for non-ducted ones. The bar is higher for ductless because it has no duct losses and starts with an advantage, so it must perform better to earn the same label. For a closer look at the metric, see what HSPF2 measures, and why ductless asks for more. These are minimums to earn the label, not typical values for a particular house.
Electricity at 19.69 cents per kWh looks expensive next to many fuels until a heat pump returns about 2.4 times the heat. Compare systems on cost per million Btu delivered, never on the price of the fuel alone. Ask any gas quote for the furnace’s efficiency so you can do the same sum.
How cold it gets, and what that does to a heat pump
Charlottetown A records about 4,598 heating degree days a year below 18 °C (64.4 °F), according to Environment and Climate Change Canada’s 1981-2010 climate normals. Heating degree days turn weather into fuel: a house in a place with twice the degree days burns roughly twice the fuel. That figure belongs to one station, uses a Celsius base and a 1981-2010 period, so it should not be set beside degree-day totals published elsewhere with other bases and periods.
The coldest month matters as much as the yearly total. At the same station, the mean daily minimum in the coldest month is -12.1 °C. That is an average of the nightly lows, not a record, so some nights run colder. On those nights the outdoor air holds less heat for the machine to collect.
Why 2.4 is an average, not a promise
The seasonal coefficient of performance of about 2.4 blends mild days and cold ones across a full winter. In deep cold a heat pump’s efficiency drops, and the C$24.31 figure sits above what the machine delivers on the worst nights. A backup carries those stretches: electric resistance strips inside the unit, or an existing furnace. Resistance strips bill at the baseboard rate of C$57.71 per million Btu, so the days they run are the expensive ones.
That does not undo the advantage. Most of the season sits well above the coldest nights, and the heat pump runs in its efficient range for those hours. The practical point is to size the backup deliberately instead of discovering it in January. Models differ widely in how they hold output as the temperature falls, and the manufacturer’s performance data at low temperatures will tell you more than the label does. Our guide on how cold is too cold for a heat pump covers that in more detail.
Treat the heat pump as the main heat source and plan the backup for the coldest nights, rather than judging it by its worst day.
What homes in Prince Edward Island already heat with
Statistics Canada’s 2023 survey of primary heating systems (table 38-10-0286) gives province-wide shares. Heat pumps lead the listed categories at 36%. Boilers with hot-water or steam radiators follow at 16%, forced-air furnaces at 14%, and electric baseboard heaters at 10%. For heating stoves the survey does not publish a figure. That is not the same as zero: the estimate was suppressed as unreliable, so it says nothing either way about how many Island homes use one.
These shares describe what was installed, not what is recommended, and they cover the whole province, not any one town.
They still sharpen the choice. A house with forced-air ducts, the 14% group, can take a ducted heat pump on its existing distribution, and its owner faces the repair-or-replace question first. If your furnace is the old part of the system, repairing a furnace or replacing it is the place to start. A boiler house, the 16% group, is a different conversion because there are no ducts to reuse. Ductless units are the usual route there, and ductless or central lays out the tradeoffs.
Baseboard homes are the simplest case for the cost comparison. The C$33.40 per million Btu gap is theirs to capture. Find out what your house heats with now, and whether gas service even reaches your street, before you compare anything else. For the wider picture across the province, see heating a home in Prince Edward Island.
When the other choice wins
Cheapest to run is not always the right call. The heat pump leads on the figures here, and there are still homes where something else makes more sense.
The first is a gas furnace with years of life left, where gas service is already on the street and its delivered price turns out to be lower once you run the same per-million-Btu sum. Without a local gas price, that sum cannot be finished here, so get the utility’s number before ruling it out. A furnace in good shape is not an emergency, and replacing it early spends capital to save running cost you have not yet measured.
The second is a dual-fuel setup: a heat pump for most of the season with the furnace kept as the backup for the coldest nights. That arrangement avoids resistance strips at C$57.71 per million Btu. It only works where a furnace and its fuel supply already exist. A house with no gas line has no such option, and for it the comparison reduces to heat pump versus baseboard, which the heat pump wins.
The third is cooling. The data here carries no cooling degree days, so whether you need air conditioning at all is a question about your own house. A heat pump also cools, and ENERGY STAR sets a minimum of 15.2 SEER2 for that side, so a house that wants both can replace two machines with one. If you never run cooling, that advantage is worth nothing and the argument rests on heating cost alone.
The fourth is the house itself. A leaky envelope or a heating load much bigger than the unit can carry pushes more hours onto backup, and no system is cheap to run there.
Common questions
Is a heat pump cheaper than electric baseboard in Prince Edward Island?
Yes, on the figures used here: C$24.31 per million Btu of heat delivered for a heat pump at 8.1 HSPF2, against C$57.71 for baseboard. That is C$33.40 less per million Btu, at an electricity price of 19.69 cents per kWh.
Does the cost per million Btu tell me my yearly bill?
No. It compares fuels on the same unit of delivered heat. Your bill depends on the size of the house, insulation, air leakage and how you set the thermostat.
What does a heat pump do on the coldest nights?
Its efficiency falls in deep cold, and the 2.4 seasonal figure is an average across the winter. The coldest month at Charlottetown has a mean daily low of -12.1 °C, so plan a backup, either resistance strips or a furnace, for the worst stretches.
Why does ENERGY STAR ask for more from ductless units?
Non-ducted split systems must reach 8.5 HSPF2, while ducted ones need 8.1. A ductless unit has no duct losses, so it begins with an advantage and has to perform better to earn the same label.