In Canada, their was a recent announcement for implementation of an aggressive Carbon tax regime that'll make the cost of gas as a heat source more expensive than electricity. This is going to make owners/engineers take a closer look at non gas based heating/humidification technologies as well as new ways to reduce energy demand:
- Air Source Heat pump technology that can provide heating at low ambient temperatures - many on the market can't provide hot water when the outside temperature is too low
- Sewage heat recovery
- Using heat pump technology to produce Domestic hot water at a large scale - residential heaters have been around but the technology atleast in Canada hasn't become widespread at a commercial level
- Heat recovery combined with some form of storage to mitigate the need for having simultaneous loads
Hope this helps, good luck!