What EnerGuide data tells us about Maritime heat pump adoption

Originally published on LinkedIn. This article reflects the information and perspective at the time of the original post.

Nova Scotia is Canada’s leader in heat pump adoption and that is great news. Between 2021 and 2025, Nova Scotia led the country in the number of homes adding heat pumps on a per-capita basis. New Brunswick ranked second and PEI third, demonstrating the strong heat pump industry that exists across the Maritimes.

This is particularly encouraging for Nova Scotia given our high concentration of oil-heated homes. Each heat pump installation helps reduce our dependence on imported heating oil, lowers greenhouse-gas emissions, and makes energy more affordable for households.

A report by Energy and Environmental Economics, Inc. commissioned by Nova Scotia Power a few years ago found that when oil-heated homes adopt high-efficiency or hybrid heat pump systems, it not only saves money for those households but can also reduce overall electricity system costs helping keep rates lower for everyone.

Note: This chart analysis was conducted using the Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) (NRCan) EnerGuide dataset and my Claude Code natural-language EnerGuide query tool. The analysis compares the pre- and post-retrofit files to identify homes that had a heat pump in the upgrade case but not in the pre-upgrade case, allowing us to estimate the number of homes that added a heat pump. It is important to note that this represents an estimate.

Some homes may have already had a heat pump in the pre-upgrade case and installed additional units. Other homes may have installed heat pumps outside the EnerGuide program. In addition, some homes may have installed multiple heat pumps. As a result, the results should be interpreted as the number of homes identified as adding at least one heat pump through the EnerGuide upgrade pathway.