Summary Solving the energy and climate challenges ahead will require introducing massive amounts of clean energy such as renewable energy (RE) sources, in particular, in urban areas as these dominate the energy use and emissions. Variable RE sources such as solar and wind are interesting mainstream energy options in this context. However, their use may cause major problems with the power system calling for more advanced strategies to enable optimal integration and bridging of the new and old energy system. Here, we demonstrate the usefulness of electricity-to-thermal conversion and RE linked to e-mobility strategies to increase the RE share much beyond the traditional self-use limit of power. For example, the Metropolitan Helsinki (Finland) region could in this way derive up to 60% of its electricity and 30% of its heat from wind power, without any major energy storage arrangements. In sunny climates, the use of photovoltaics could be increased by a factor of 2–3 over the self-use limit of power through such strategies. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.