This comparison shows that both median gate-to-gate electricity and heat demands in ecoinvent are close to the proxy values derived from the Gendorf site data (about 10 % lower for both electricity and heat). In direct comparison, the primary energy demand for electricity in ecoinvent is higher than for heat. Both IDEA and IHS Markit data, however, show a distinctly different pattern: the median primary energy demand for electricity per gate-to-gate dataset is about half of 40 the ecoinvent value in case of IDEA, while the median primary energy demand related to heat is 220 % higher in the case of IDEA. IHS Markit data shows a similar pattern. In addition, the spread of heat demands in both IDEA and IHS Markit is much wider than in ecoinvent, where instead the overall distribution remains close to the proxy value. Some of the differences between the three databases may arise from a different subset of processes or different allocation principles, but even the much smaller dataset presented by shows a similar pattern compared to the IDEA and IHS 50 Markit data and thus deviates from the ecoinvent pattern. Hence it is most likely that the proxy approach in ecoinvent distorts the overall results by narrowing down the variability in electricity and heat demands as the same data is used for many processes and, more importantly, by underestimating heat and overestimating electricity demands on average due to the missing representative production profile (and hence biased energy demand) of the raw data behind the proxy approach.