There’s no time like the Maritimes. With a combined population less than that of metro Vancouver, and a land mass smaller than any other province, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island are a relatively tiny part of Canada. Our colonial history has blessed us with three separate provincial governments, giving us three distinct energy systems. We also enjoy a climactic variance: Halifax and Saint John feature mild coastal weather, while Fredericton freezes and/or bakes depending on the season. The differences in climate and energy pricing makes it somewhat difficult to easily compare home heating costs in our region.
I’ve constructed a model using Carrier’s Hourly Analysis Program (HAP) that allows us to roughly determine energy budgets in three different cities: Fredericton, NB, Charlottetown, PE, and Halifax, NS. The model uses an identical house constructed to Efficiency New Brunswick’s guidelines for new construction. The home, an 1125 sq ft bungalow with an insulated basement, allows us to compare energy prices on an apples-to-apples basis.
The model home is heated with either an electric furnace, a natural gas furnace (with a nominal 90% efficiency), or an oil furnace (with a nominal 85% efficiency). I used prices from Heritage Gas and NS Power for Halifax, Enbridge and NB Power for Fredericton, and Maritime Electric for Charlottetown. No natural gas is available on PEI. I also used a standard price of oil of $1.074/L. The HST for each province (13% for NB and PE, 15% for NS) is also applied, but the NS HST rebate is not discounted.
A nominal amount of household electricity use is applied for each city. This allows the customer, or meter, charge for each utility to be considered in a relative fashion. Hot water use is not modeled, although the nominal electricity use is large enough to account for electric hot water heaters in each simulation. Air-conditioning in summer is not considered in this model, although the model house does contain a 70% efficient heat recovery ventilator (HRV) as required by Efficiency NB.
We should first look at the climactic difference between each province. When we simulate the heating loads for each city, the results are:
- Halifax: 54.9 GJ
- Charlottetown: 66.4 GJ
- Fredericton: 69.8 GJ
This is the amount of energy needed to heat these homes on a yearly basis. Halifax, features a milder winter and thus requires less heating energy. The modeling program uses these values, plus a nominal annual consumption of 16,500 kWh of additional electricity, to determine the annual energy budget for each location. The model also applies the various regional utility rates to each city.
- Halifax (Gas Furnace): $4250
- Halifax (Electric Furnace): $5200
- Halifax (Oil Furnace): $5000
- Fredericton (Gas Furnace): $4000
- Fredericton (Electric Furnace): $4250
- Fredericton (Oil Furnace): $4850
- Charlottetown (Electric Furnace): $4650
- Charlottetown (Oil Furnace): $5250
While Fredericton has the highest energy load, the gas heating budget is the lowest estimate in the region. The opposite is true for electric heat in Halifax: the mildest winter gives us very nearly the most expensive form of heat. The relatively high cost of electricity in Halifax makes it the only locale where oil heat is cheaper than electricity.
To see just how expensive electricity is in Nova Scotia, I modeled each regional electricity rate in a Fredericton home (with HST adjusted to NB’s 13%).
- Fredericton (Electric Furnace w/ NB Power rate): $4250
- Fredericton (Electric Furnace w/ Maritime Electric rate): $4750
- Fredericton (Electric Furnace w/ NS Power rate): $5750
If NB Power adjusted its rates overnight to match those of NS Power, energy budgets would increase by almost 36%. Ouch.
These numbers should not be considered gospel. Energy modeling programs use simulation data for each city that allows the program to consider an “average” winter. The model also assumes that thermostats are not touched for an entire year, something that proves impossible in any home. The numbers above do allow us to compare energy prices on an apples-to-apples basis in each city, and to consider how a city’s location affects heating costs.
