Heating Fuel Cost by Province (Canada): The Cheapest Way to Heat, 2026
The cheapest way to heat a Canadian home is not the same in Halifax as it is in Calgary. Electricity, natural gas, heating oil, propane, wood pellets and firewood each cost wildly different amounts per province — and once you account for how efficiently your appliance turns fuel into heat, the ranking flips from one province to the next. This index puts every option on one comparable scale: dollars per gigajoule of heat actually delivered into your home.
Quick answer
This index shows the delivered cost of useful heat — dollars per gigajoule (GJ) actually delivered into your home — for every Canadian province across seven heat sources: electric baseboard, an air-source heat pump, natural gas, heating oil, propane, wood pellets and cordwood. "Delivered" means after appliance efficiency, so a cheap fuel burned inefficiently can lose to an expensive one used well. The cheapest source in each province is highlighted.
There is no single "cheapest fuel in Canada" — it flips by province. Where electricity is cheap (Quebec, Manitoba, BC) an electric heat pump, or a Bitcoin space heater that earns while it heats, beats fossil fuels outright. Where power is expensive (the Maritimes), gas or a heat pump usually win and resistance heat is dear. Electricity rates are single-sourced from our provincial electricity dataset; fuel prices are 2026 residential figures — confirm your local rate. Free CSV/JSON under CC BY 4.0.
Download CSV Download JSON REST API →
Values are delivered $/GJ of heat (lower is cheaper). Green = cheapest source in that province. † = regional proxy price. ~ = lower-confidence estimate. n/a = no residential market.
| Province | Electric resistance (baseboard) | Air-source heat pump (cold-climate) | Natural gas (condensing furnace) | Heating oil (#2 furnace oil) | Propane | Wood pellets | Cordwood (seasoned hardwood) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quebec QC | $20 | $9 | $16 | $61† | $40~ | $30 | $24~ |
| Manitoba MB | $28 | $13 | $7 | $63~† | $39~† | $26 | $25~ |
| British Columbia BC | $33 | $15 | $14 | $71† | $47~ | $29 | $22~ |
| Ontario ON | $33 | $15 | $10 | $72† | $37 | $29 | $27 |
| Alberta AB | $33 | $15 | $7 | $58~† | $36~ | $27~ | $31 |
| Prince Edward Island PE | $40 | $18 | n/a | $53 | $37 | $30~† | $16~ |
| Newfoundland and Labrador NL | $42 | $19 | n/a | $65† | $45 | $32~† | $27 |
| New Brunswick NB | $43 | $19 | $25 | $67 | $40 | $28~ | $21 |
| Saskatchewan SK | $43 | $20 | $8 | $55~† | $37~† | $27~† | $28~ |
| Nova Scotia NS | $53 | $24 | $26~† | $57† | $44~† | $29~† | $21 |
Electricity rates single-sourced from the Canada electricity rates by province dataset. For the physics and the national fuel comparison (incl. the net cost of Bitcoin-mining heat) see the heating fuel cost comparison; to run your own numbers use the mining-as-heating calculator (with a province selector that pulls these figures). Prices are 2026 residential estimates and vary by supplier, contract and season.
A Bitcoin miner is a resistive electric heater that also earns while it runs, so it shares the “electric baseboard” row on a gross basis but its net cost drops below everything once mining revenue is counted — most dramatically where electricity is cheap. To put your own miner, run-hours and local fuel price into the math, use the mining-as-heating savings calculator (it reads its provincial fuel defaults straight from this index). For the underlying physics and the national fuel comparison, see the heating fuel cost comparison; for the power side, the Canada electricity rates by province dataset. Ready-to-run heat is our Bitcoin space heaters.
Related products, repair, and setup paths
- how D-Central diagnoses ASIC repairs
- ASIC troubleshooting library
- ASIC manuals and repair guides
- replacement hashboards
- ASIC control boards
- ASIC power supplies
- S19 family replacement hashboard
- C52 replacement control board
- APW12 S19 power supply
- immersion cooling hub
- home immersion cooling guide
- ASIC miners for immersion planning
- ASIC cooling parts
- airflow shroud before immersion
- compare miner specs in the database
- ASIC repair support
Last reviewed July 17, 2026.