Your choices:
1 Local cooling (ind. house); Comfortable indoor climate; 2 Water
| What is your resource? | What do you want to deliver? | What is the service the customer wants? |
| Biomass (digestible sludge) | District cooling | 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) |
| Sunshine | Fuel: Liquid | Process heat (150 - 1000 °C) |
| 2 Water | Fuel: Solid | Process heat (> 1000 °C) |
| Wind | 1 Local cooling (ind. house) | Transport |
| Residual oils/fats etc | Local heating (ind. house) |
Not so few dwellings are situated in close connection to small water flows, old mills or irrigation dams. As soon as there is a flow of water and a height difference, there is a possibility to install a micro-sized hydropower generator.
With a micro-installation, delivering 230 V AC to the internal electricity installation in the building, i.e. "behind" the meter, the electricity produced will mainly be available in the house but any surplus will be delivered to the grid and discounted for. Also, micro-power stations – ranging only a few hundred kW or up – can often be integrated in old water-mills and hence also contribute to the maintenance of cultural heritage.
Even a 10 kW generator, running only 8 h/day 200 days per year as may be the case in the smallest imaginable micro-installation will produce 16000 kWh per year which is enough for a normal single-family household and will fully compensate for the marginal electricity used for cooling purposes.