I'm building a new house like this - in my country the building code is on par with Passive House standards, so we don't have much choice :-) I ran the numbers

I'm building a new house like this - in my country the building code is on par with Passive House standards, so we don't have much choice :-) I ran the numbers for heating with gas vs an electric heat pump, and gas actually worked out more expensive. The house will need around 2000W[0] of heat in the middle of winter. For that usage, the most expensive part of gas would be the network fee, not the gas itself. An electric heat pump is a bit more expensive that a gas boiler, but considering we'd need to have a gas connection introduced to the property, the overall upfront cost is the same. The lifetime of both units is the same (10-15 years). Someone here mentioned a gas absorption heat pump before, but those units are much more expensive than an electric heat pump in my country, and it still has the same issue of the gas network fee being expensive. We'll also have solar PV, so that will cut the electricity running costs even lower once it's paid off (~7 years). It's interesting that once you have an efficient building envelope, technologies that you would think would be more efficient such as solar water heaters or ground source heat pumps don't actually make sense financially in the long term. I also ran the numbers for underfloor infrared heating vs electric heat pump + hydronic underfloor heating. Taking into account the higher installation costs, and expected life of the heat pump unit, the infrared heating - which is must less efficient - actually works out costing around the same. The unit we have will also provide DHW and cooling in the summer, so it's apples and oranges, but for a pure heating perspective it's worth considering that option, espeically if you want a lower upfront cost. [0] For a 160m2 / 1700sqft house. This doesn't take into account 'waste' heat from appliances, so our primary heat source demand will actually be less.