PG&E electric rates are so high that it's operationally more expensive to use a heat pump than a condensing gas system. The heat pump is the better deal practically everywhere else in the contiguous US.
I'm installing a heat pump system in PG&E territory as part of a remodel, but pairing it with a large solar system.
Aren't PG&E gas rates substantially higher than their electric rates?
Their price per joule of electricity is higher than per joule of gas by more than the coefficient of performance of a heat pump. You are better off getting thermal energy by burning gas if your energy provider is PG&E.
The story only gets worse once you start carefully accounting for baseline allowances.
There are a couple ways to interpret what you're saying: that PG&E charges a higher rate relative to the national average for gas vs. electricity, which is what I think you mean, and that PG&E charges more for a joule of gas than a joule of electricity.
Presuming you meant it the first way, it's still possible that heating with gas is cheaper, since the national average for a joule's worth of natural gas is quite a bit cheaper than the same for electricity.
Natural gas is ~$0.08/kwh & electricity $0.52/kwh for me on PGE
Honestly, just make sure you’re spending as much money as you can afford in insulation and double or tripled glazed windows. It makes all the different. We used cellulose fiber on our latest renovation , even between the slab in the ground and the floor, it’s wild how warm our place is.
A heat pump is absolutely a no-brainer in our case. I like being able to get away from natural gas, although I must say, moving all electric means we'll be held hostage more and more to PG&E. (We have solar, but it'll be well below our needs once we had square footage and the heat pump, and don't want to get screwed by NEM 3.0).