Your choices:
1 Electricity; 2 Water; 3 Comfortable indoor climate
| What is your resource? | What do you want to deliver? | What is the service the customer wants? |
| Biomass (digestible sludge) | District cooling | 3 Comfortable indoor climate |
| Biomass (fermentable sludge) | District heating | Electricity |
| Biomass (solid) | 1 Electricity | Process cooling (< 0 °C) |
| Geothermal | Fuel: Gaseous | Process heat/steam (50 - 150 °C) |
| Sunshine | Fuel: Liquid | Process heat (150 - 1000 °C) |
| 2 Water | Fuel: Solid | Process heat (> 1000 °C) |
| Wind | Local cooling (ind. house) | Transport |
| Residual oils/fats etc | Local heating (ind. house) |
Electricity is the king of energy carriers and should generally not be used for indoor climate control. The energy in flowing water can – from all practical standpoints – be used for nothing else than for electricity production.
In spite of the thermodynamical arguments against it, electricity is often used for indoor climate control and in warmer climates this takes place using air-conditioning units and electrical water heaters for the production of tap water.
With the global warming the need of cooling during summers is increasing and as long as climate control is provided using individual air-conditioning units the need for electricity is bound to increase and to become more and more seasonal.
Provided the reservoirs are big enough to handle the seasonal variations in precipitation such seasonal variations in electricity demand may to a certain extent be met by the production of electricity in hydropower stations but the use of electricity for this purpose should not be promoted.