Your choices:
1 Electricity; 2 Biomass (digestible sludge); 3 Electricity
| What is your resource? | What do you want to deliver? | What is the service the customer wants? |
| 2 Biomass (digestible sludge) | District cooling | Comfortable indoor climate |
| Biomass (fermentable sludge) | District heating | 3 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) |
| Water | Fuel: Solid | Process heat (> 1000 °C) |
| Wind | Local cooling (ind. house) | Transport |
| Residual oils/fats etc | Local heating (ind. house) |
When digestible sludge is the source of energy, logistics will prevent the establishment of large plants. Rather, the plant size will be limited by the local availability of the biomass than from the potential market. So though the district heating network as such may benefit from the demand for process heat, the anaerobic digestion plant will most probably not be the major source for the energy distributed in the district heating system, nor will it be a major source of electricity – even seen in a local perspective.
Keeping these restrictions in mind it may still be advantageous for a small manufacturer to contract locally produced electricity for environmental marketing reasons. The advantage for the customer will be that any claim that the electricity used is truly a local produce will have a high credibility.
At the customer end, electricity is often used for purposes and processes where it's unique features are not fully valued.