We may not heat our apartment by other than inherent and solar heat sources (body heat, waste heat from electric appliances and direct solar radiation through the windows), but we do not renounce the copious use of hot water. We do take showers as often as ‘normal’ people do! In fact, we do not save hot water use when compared to other households, despite hot water saving water taps that are installed as a standard component of all bathrooms and kitchens in our house. A main reason for this is that we use hot water to lower electricity consumption: our dishwasher and the wall-mounted hot steam cooker are directly connected to the hot water tap. But we also don’t waste water either.
However, as our house is connected to the DH network of our city quarter Messestadt Riem, and the energy for providing our hot water is generated by the mix of that heating network: 85 per cent geothermal energy and 15 per cent natural gas, our hot water supply is predominantly based on renewable energy. Again, this is not to our credit but is something we owe to the sustainable urban development of the Messestadt Riem, which was decided by the city council and the DH network that was built and is operated by the municipal utilities.
