Your choices:
1 Comfortable indoor climate; 2 Sunshine; 3 Local cooling (ind house)
| What is your resource? | What do you want to deliver? | What is the service the customer wants? |
| Biomass (digestible sludge) | District cooling | 1 Comfortable indoor climate |
| Biomass (fermentable sludge) | District heating | Electricity |
| Biomass (solid) | Electricity | Process cooling (< 0 °C) |
| Geothermal | Fuel: Gaseous | Process heat/steam (50 - 150 °C) |
| 2 Sunshine | Fuel: Liquid | Process heat (150 - 1000 °C) |
| Water | Fuel: Solid | Process heat (> 1000 °C) |
| Wind | 3 Local cooling (ind. house) | Transport |
| Residual oils/fats etc | Local heating (ind. house) |
Todays' air-conditioning units will provide air-borne heating as well as cooling in one single unit and often such units will be found in the individual rooms in single-family houses.
For the use of renewable energy in combination with AC-units there is mainly one alternative for buildings outside the areas where district heating and cooling is supplied, and that is to provide at least part of the electricity need for the house by local, individual, generation. In this combination, this can be achieved by solar cells.
The use of solar-driven, absorption heat pumps for individual house cooling will be costly, though it is an alternative that is technically available.