District-Heat Supply, Combined Heat/Power Cycles, and the Problems of Our Power Supply.

On the basis of the study conducted by the Council for Good Energy Use Policy as well as on the studies by the Working Group on Combined Heat/Power Cycles set up by the Austrian Federal Minsitry of Commerce, Trade and Industry, this Report presents the technical and economic problems the owners of heat supply systems and the electricity undertakings would be faced with in the case of an increased use of combined heat/power cycles. A point in favor of the heat/power cycle is the high utilization of the input of primary energy. But the question of how to evaluate the distant heat and the electricity generated energy transformation is to be solved because the principle that no type of energy should be financed through another one continues to be maintained. This report ends with an outlook for the future, when even the natural gas and fuel oil resources run short in France. A new low-capacity reactor type is being developed, which may perhaps in the future serve to supply power to the existing district heating systems.