Based on McDude's number for electricity, a heat pump with coefficient of performance (COP) of 3 would be $17.10 (51.29/3). A good air source heat pump can achieve that for much of the year, certainly in the spring and fall, of interest to the OP. For a ground source heat pump, an overall COP of 4.0 is achievable, which would reduce that relative cost to $12.82. Natural gas often is cheapest, but unlikely available in rural areas. Running electric lines overhead is far easier than to run a pipe underground, frequently where blasting would be required for the trench.
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