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In the UK, cost of running an air-source heat pump was on par with a gas boiler; now, I'd imagine, gas boiler is more expensive. France IIRC has cheaper electricity, so the imbalance is even greater.

So this seems like exactly the right approach: the state is shifting subsidies to the cleaner source, doing what should be done anyway.

I agree affordability is an issue, and the state should step in where necessary.



Heat-pump to make hot water is a thing, heat-pump to heat a house (low inertia, geothermal as such) are another. A good enough heat-pump water heater demand more space than a gas one (300-500 liter are common kind, while gas ones tend to be instantaneous, the size of a backpack) and cost essentially the same. A low inertia geothermal heat pump to heat a house demand:

- a big capex (~20k euros)

- a sufficiently insulated house

So potentially, for old house in moderately cold winter climate that means 50-60k euro investments that probably can be paid back in 15 years, if everything last at least 15 years without breakages... Far more economical air-air or air-water heat pumps can't be used in many place simply because of exterior temperature, especially at night, and insufficient insulation.

Of course: we know all houses MUST tend to consume less, BUT pushing the need for new houses in the middle of a crisis, where many comprehend that's partially natural, but also partially artificial (just to make some people richer) it's not exactly a viable way. Italy for instance launch a "110% incentives" that essentially means: we (government) pay 110% of any work needed to get 2 energy consumption class improvement in houses. The result after more than an year is a disaster: due to high demand it's almost impossible finding anything and prices have been skyrocket well passing bonus thresholds. France have launched a bit before "1 euro symbolic price for generic insulation", as a result many choose it, it was far simple than the Italian 110% but again the outcome was mostly very bad: to maximize profits most enterprises have done very bad/useless jobs just dropping insulation without ventilation, without caring of humidity etc.

IMVHO the SOLE option is pushing individual homes, offering incentives to sell apartments to the State (buy back to demolish in the future) in exchange of new A-class houses. That means a first batch of remote workers and retirees from the middle class, behind them small opportunities for service industry will appear so new people coming and behind them others as well. That's might be doable in 25+ years for a significant amount of people, in 50+ years for most with a new old distributed economy in the whole country instead of a concentrated ones in the hands and places. The rest seems to be a classic stereotypical USA-style business plan: try and fix on the go while making disasters on scale. It's a recipe for a disaster so big that have all the potential for a global unrest at WWIII level...

Just pushing "small potatoes" efficiency like "just change to heat pumps for hot water, induction plates etc" is meaningless: the outcome will be may small capex for not really reduced opex, a big amount of wastes, a big gains for few who build such appliance and no real benefit for the society. For instance I have a hot-water heat pump and a solar p.v. system, most of the time I prefer heat water with the classic 2.7kW electrical resistance inside the pump because it's load curb works far better with p.v. self-consumption since it's far faster than the heat pump and so let me schedule more loads (washing machine, dishwasher etc) during the peak hours. Long story short: if we push p.v. systems it's better for them having a kind of electrical appliance that's NOT better for reduce power bill without p.v. and that's a problem. Also their MTBF vary and that's another problem. These days and not from today too many prefer focusing on an aspect and ignore the big picture, that does not work. We always need the big picture.




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