Yes indeed, I’m aware of the current situation with regard to pumped hydro — unfortunately it’s hugely expensive to set up, is often dependent on geographic considerations, and as you rightly say has to be hooked into the conventional grid in some way.

I’m sure battery technology will get cheaper over time but it also has the huge advantage that it can be stationed pretty much anywhere rather than having to stay in a specific place forever. It’s also able to balance the grid in real time, with a high renewable penetration this is something pumped hydro just cannot do even though it has fairly low latency it’s just not low enough.

We need a lot more investment in battery technology to make it better — and that’s what we should be doing before switching off existing base load generative capacity.