IIRC, the parking meters in Winnipeg had outlets on them to plug your car’s block heater in while you were shopping. The thing was, though, if that meter timed out the power was cut. I imagine that virtually solved the problem of parking at expired meters.
When our kids lived in Fairbanks, all the parking lots has plugs for all the spaces cos even if you were just running into the store for a few things, you had to plug in your car. I thought it was pretty cool. Here, in the sub-polar regions, some of us have been known to put an electric blanket over the engine....