Aren't space heaters and emergency heat essentially the same thing? It seems strange for the city to ban space heaters when they really ought not to be worse than any other resistive heater
I imagine the ban on space heaters refers more to their fire risk, since emergency heat would be permanently installed in a location where there’s not any flammable materials but a space heater can be placed right next to any number of flammable things.
It's one step better than people turning their stoves on.
And hilariously, if too many people artificially heat their apartments, it actually crashes the system somehow because if too many zones in the mini split have heat, it flips to AC mode.
They’re exactly the same efficiency (100% electrical power to heat), with the caveat that space heaters tend to be more of a fire danger as they’re temporarily connected.
Resistive baseboard heating is the permanent option.