@simonheatht @sarah_go_green @mgboyes Or to think about it another way, would you put your savings in a bond you can't access for 10 years with 0% interest?

@simoncgallagher @MarkPoynting Surely the main answer is that virtually all of the existing renewable fleet has contracted payments above the average wholesale market price, so it can't be expected to reduce bills?

@I_Le_Android @JDSchoolmeester Isn't geothermal high capex, making it similar to nuclear in that reducing the load factor would be bad for its economics?

@TontonMytho @Samuele19665287 @JDSchoolmeester I mean it's right there on the wiki

@Archadius7 @Atomicrod I don't think it's a grid thing; it's a cost of construction thing. If anything, large, remote solar plants should be at a disadvantage in terms of grid connection costs.

@TheAccountantUK There seems to be a lot of mystery around what doing insulation "right" to avoid unintended consequences actually involves

@TheAccountantUK For homes with electric heating, it's likely economic to install an air-to-air heat pump, though EPCs won't suggest that. I can see lots of rentals ending up with solar PV. Good for tenant bills but questionable for national electricity cost IMO

@NoPoke @Samuele19665287 @JDSchoolmeester I think here in Northern Europe, nuclear's advantage is taking strain off the scale of wind buildout, and the scale of gas capacity which needs to be retained in service. It displaces wind but doesn't solve intermittency

@NoPoke @Ewbank_1 @_heatgeek The cycling isn't a problem; comfort and efficiency are good. But my take from this experience is most real world installs must cycle for an awful lot of the heating season.

@NoPoke @_heatgeek Can we move on from promoting third party room thermostats and smart TRVs while we're at it? Often encouraged by energy saving advice, EPCs, etc. If upgrading controls, I'd have thought it would be better to start getting used to weather compensation

@Samuele19665287 @JDSchoolmeester My comment is not anti nuclear. It's that so called "baseload" is not a meaningful benefit.

@Samuele19665287 @JDSchoolmeester France actually built too much nuclear power during the Messmer Plan, based on projections of demand increase which turned out to be too high. It's accidental that they run nuclear at reduced load factors. They have also dealt with this by exporting to neighbours

@Samuele19665287 @JDSchoolmeester Sorry for switching between "capacity factor" and "load factor". I'm talking about the same thing