EVA England with Warren
Hi. Welcome to the episode 3535 of Take It AV. In today's episode, I've got an interview with Warren. Warren is a major contributor to EVA England, we're just gonna talk about the inception of EAVA England, the whole story, what it is, you know, how you can get involved and what it does, And also, about his house, which he kinda converted, you know, into being as energy efficient and sustainable as possible, which is very inspiring. And Warren himself is a very inspiring person.
Speaker 1:If you ever, you know, come across him at any event, just Go and chat to him. He's a he's an amazing guy. And, I had a privilege of sitting down with him at the beginning of March and, recording an episode. So enjoy that. But first, I need to run through a couple of messages.
Speaker 1:So first of all, Sorry about the absence in the last month and a bit, but March is a bit of a a bit of a tragic month for me, and I just had to take some some time off. Secondly, I've recorded quite a few things at the beginning of March, but they you know, I couldn't get them released, just yet. They'll they'll they'll come soon. The next couple of episodes are gonna be video form and audio as well. So, do subscribe to the YouTube channel.
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Speaker 1:I've been going since 2019, and I really need this. Anyway, on with the show. Let's talk about EVA.
Speaker 2:Also, we'll start with that. It's EVA England.
Speaker 1:EVA England.
Speaker 2:It's in Bordenade, EVA England.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, this is EVA England, especially. And if we can go into why if you want as well.
Speaker 1:I'm happy to. Like, are all the EVAs sort of in the UK connected, or or are they kind of separate entities?
Speaker 2:So, we all work together, but the thing is, like, so EVA As three letters, EVA is a name, but it's also, there is various schemes are appropriate at those letters already, and they're using them for other things. So when we talk, we are very specifically saying EVA England because we are the Electric Vehicle Association for England. Yeah. In the same way, we've got EVA Scotland, we've got an EVA Northern Ireland as well. There there is talk of a Welsh group, but it it's it's this is not something simple to do.
Speaker 2:And so I think it's just it's a struggle to find people who are that committed to do it. It takes a lot of commitment to do this stuff. Yeah. Just get it off the ground is really hard work. And there's there's lots of lovely people who would really like to listen, say, Wales, but they haven't been able to find that level of commitment.
Speaker 2:You need a bunch of people who are committed because unless you're retired and have all the time in the world, Or a bunch of you retired and have all the time involved. You you cannot put this thing together properly, and that's the issue at the moment. We're just finding people in Wales To take it on at the level it needs to be done.
Speaker 1:Okay. So let let's talk about the EVA England then.
Speaker 2:So EVA England, so what do you wanna know? Okay. I'll start with how we we we got together. So, basically, it's kinda come this EV England Kinda grew from a lot of different things. It wasn't just a single individual or or thing.
Speaker 2:There was a few people who are kind of all in the same sort of space, and we all kind of collaborated to put this together. On the actual lobbying side, Alan Kuklan met Bridget Phelps, and that's then they're actually our chair. Bridget's our chair, and Alan's our vice chair. They met at a charging at a charger. They were talking about the the state The charging infrastructure Classic.
Speaker 2:Mode. You know, typical EV drivers. Right? You know? A a charge a charger having a conversation.
Speaker 2:As we all do, all of us all of us who kind of in this for I've been here 6 years. You are driving EVs now. We all wanna help our fellow people because we we struggled. We've all had the struggle, you know, and all of us Who've been doing this for a while? Tend to try and stop and chat people.
Speaker 2:That's because we we do. So they met at charging station. They were chatting a respiratory pieces. They both have backgrounds in charities and lobbying and all those kind of things, and so they were like, well, where is the association? Where is the drivers association for this?
Speaker 2:And there just isn't one in England. There's a Scottish EVA, and they are amazing. They've been running for like, I think it's coming up 11 years this year, And they have done amazing things in Scotland. If you look at the charging infrastructure out there and the free charging, all the bits and pieces they've had for so long, They've done a great job, and they've worked worked themselves into a position in Scotland where they are trusted and they are Have a lot of members and, you know, they're doing they're fighting the good fight. They're really good guys, but there was nothing in the rest of the country, basically.
Speaker 2:So Alan then took it upon himself to try and find other people, and my my dog's just come and say hello, by the way. He's over here on the microphone. That's what it is. I'm not just, breathing heavily here. So, so, basically, Alan started looking round for other people who are in this space and spoke to, the usual suspects you would do.
Speaker 2:You know, you speak to a Scottish the guys in Scotland, but you also would speak to, you know, Fully Charged, the Renewable and Energy Association, REA, and some other bits and pieces. Go.
Speaker 1:Yep. There's a dog.
Speaker 2:That's my dog. So yeah. So, and he then got he met a guy called, Dan Brown, who is who was at the RIA and with a few other people. And then alongside that, well, you know me from Sussex EVs. Yes.
Speaker 2:So Neil set up Sussex EVs, and I got involved in that Quite early on, and then and before I was doing that, I was doing other bits and pieces with Transition Town, and I was already doing a lot of, sort of EV. I was, like, an EV evangelist who used to call me because I used to do Various shows and talks to the press and journalists and do bits and pieces and had stuff on there. I've got I've got I've got things on the Tesla website. I've got BBC, I did a whole bunch of stuff in that thing, so I was kind of already kinda known for that. I bumped I met Neil, and it's a TV meet, And we became friends, and I've been helping with that since then.
Speaker 2:And so I was kinda learning the EV stuff for that, and then this guy, Raleigh, was looking for to do an EV association for England. And so he contacted a bunch of people in the various, groups around the country Oh, locally, anyway. He lives he at the time, he was living just across the border in Surrey. So he Cain took all the meetings. He'd met a few of us, and he kind of talk talk to us, and he'd been emailing back and forth.
Speaker 2:And it's it was really interesting what his idea was, But the Nexus Group is a very much a community, and we're all in the group, especially. It's Everyone everyone is trying to do life and do this as a as a thing. There isn't that, that time that people need to put something like this together. But, in the end, I think it was Neil, myself, and Gary, UK EV.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know Gary?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I know.
Speaker 2:Gary Cambridge Yeah. Who were all invited to this the first sort of online meetings of these people. And When we got there in the room was obviously, Bridget and Alan, but also, Dan from REA, and then, Jill Jill Noel, who you've had on the before I think.
Speaker 1:I had. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And Jill came in via, I think, I think fully charged, and some other people mentioned her as well. So fully fully charged runs down, fully charged mentioned, but there's also the the EV groups as well. So that's how we kinda get together, And we all did end up on on a a Zoom call talking about this and seeing what we could do and how we were interested in what it would involve and so on. And then, Gary had has a 1,000,000 things going on.
Speaker 2:He you know what he's like? He's a man with many things happening.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And he was trying to change the Facebook group to be more than that, to the website and do the bits of pieces. He already had plans what he wanted to do with his stuff. And Neil is, again, just a busy person, and the nexus stuff takes a lot of time. And, and it takes a lot of time because it is everyone's everyone's in the community is not a company. It is, you know, try it's like herding cats.
Speaker 2:And we start trying to organize a party or, you know, it's like, oh my god. Someone just answer an email. You know? It's it's and it's and it's and it's just because we're all it's life. It's the you know, this isn't we don't get paid for this.
Speaker 2:All of us doing it in our own time. And so the Nexus is a different field. It's very much a a community. I I I feel like the Nexus is much more of a hippie sort of thing. Everyone's kind of pulling together for the right cause, And EVA England needed to be much more of a structured company.
Speaker 2:It needs to be a, You you gotta you gotta, you almost like, you gotta if you're if you're trying to change the world and fight fight fight against the, Fossil fuel lobbies, you've got to be organized in the same way they are. Yeah. And that's what we're trying to do. We what's we wanted to do. We wanted to be, like, Strong and coherent and together and organized, and you need to be.
Speaker 2:Otherwise, you don't get in you don't get your foot in the door. You don't get into that room when these conversations are happening. And so that's what we did. So we, we set up as a CIC. We're gonna try and do it as a charity, but that takes a It takes a lot of work, and we were all geared up for it.
Speaker 2:But then the, the 2030 consultation came out And the the change from 2050 to 2030 to try and move that that needle came, and we thought we need to be We we need to work in there. We can't be trying to work on becoming a charity. We need to be working on saying that as EV drivers, we want it to be 2030 and not 2040 and not 2050, and we want it to be and we support this. We want this. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so We set up really quickly. We we set up as a CIC, with the 6 of us, and we did our survey. We surveyed The EV drivers and, we put our stuff together, and we submitted it, and we got our views into that consultation. And that wasn't as simple. I say that as a a really simple set of steps.
Speaker 2:It's not. It's a it was a quite a complicated thing to do. Quite a difficult thing for us to To put together and put together coherently and in a way that people paying attention, because you remember that we're fighting against the likes of Fair fuel and those guys who've got a lot of money, and it literally was, you know, one of us paid for I think I think I paid for hosting. No. No.
Speaker 2:I didn't. I paid the hosting. Jill paid for the domains. Like, you know, we did this all of our own money. We didn't we didn't no one paid this.
Speaker 2:We did that whole first piece on our own. We did all that bit on our own. We all chipped in a few 100 quid here and there and whatever it took to get it up and running, we all use our own kit, and we got going. And then, Bridget and Alan are amazing, and they know all the stuff and know all of how this works, and they've the charities and things before. So they then looked into getting us grants.
Speaker 2:We got a start up seed grant that gave us a bunch of money to give us, you know, a member of staff Just to do the collection of the information, run things in the background, to set up our, our back end systems so that everyone who registers us as a member is their stuff is protected. That that information is looked after. We don't just whack it onto a spreadsheet and Tuck it on a, you know, Google Drive somewhere. It's, you know, it's in a proper, you know, it's it's properly looked after in a CRM. We we take all that stuff very seriously.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, we did all that and we kinda ramped. But what happened really is it's it should really be a 2 pronged attack for this stuff, With the one half being lobbying, which is which is the thing that is the most important thing, and then the other half being members, But we just haven't because of the way it's kinda gone and because of we're we've been so successful in the lobbying, so I'm getting into that room, we've put A lot of our time and most of our time into talking to MPs, talking to members of talking to the laws, talking to, Department for transport talking to, the various organizations and stuff who are doing this. That that's become most of what we do. Mhmm. And on the flip side, we haven't been able to chase those membership benefits and chase getting new members, and that's all changing now.
Speaker 2:We're changing our We're changing all that now, so there'll be announcements coming into Fully Charged, what we're doing, and things new benefits for members, and how we're changing things and Pulling more members in because we need more members to to make this this carry on.
Speaker 1:Okay. So the 2022 is gonna be a year of Of big things for EVA ingots.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It is. So we, we spent the last year doing stuff, and then we got some we we We, we need to keep the lights on, Nesen. So we went to get some more grants. We we did some, we applied for some more grants, and we've just got are granted it came.
Speaker 2:It should have come at the end of last year, but actually, we were all working really hard on COP. We were at COP doing stuff at COP for transport day and pushing things and trying to get Things done and working with various people at COP. And so, again, that just took a long time, but the grant We have now got a grant which gives enough money to run staff for 18 months. So we have an 18 month slot now, and that will start coming in from April where we are gonna hire people, and we're we're just hiring for our new CEO. So we're just on the interview stage of that, and we'll be, we'll be announcing that soon, and there'll be a whole bunch of coming with that.
Speaker 2:But that then gives that that gives a bit we need to be sustainable. So that person coming in is gonna build, build us into being a sustainable entity where we whether it's with grants we get from various people, whether it's, Work we do on things like surveys and responses to things where we know where where we can where where it's being involved in Various things that have come out where we can claim money from the government. Well, we'd like a lot we'd like the money to come lot of money to come from our members because that gives us complete independence, and we're not beholden to anyone. But the the the plan is is that person coming in will set up a small team around themselves, And they will build a sustainable, EVA England, which will then continue this work. Because As much as the 6 of us have really pushed or to do this stuff, 2 of 22 of the the team are retired, so they have a bit more time.
Speaker 2:And when I say that, I mean, they have a bit more time, but they're, they they have other things going on. They're doing other bits and pieces as well. They're very active in, Other charities and other events and things, and the rest of us all work. So, we give it we give our time to this thing. So for me, I I've dropped today of at work, so I've took a 20% pay cut, which gives me 1 whole day that I can spend doing family stuff and doing EVA stuff.
Speaker 2:EVA English stuff. And that's what I give to this. But that isn't sustainable long term. I probably got maybe another year of that Realistically, before I have to think about, maybe came back to work full time or maybe how I juggle my time a bit more. I mean, it all depends on family more than anything else, family is always first for me.
Speaker 2:But I will give whatever time I can to this, and I will build this and do whatever I can. But once we're at that sustainable point, I just need to see this grow and flourish. I just can be there in the background kinda helping steer it. But The only way you get any real change is if it's done properly, and it needs to be a sustainable, real thing, like, with a real company, with real people who their job to do this work?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. You you want people to be able to focus continuously. Yeah. Is it fair to say that, You guys are looking for volunteers still?
Speaker 1:Or,
Speaker 2:we're always looking for volunteers. So so so The like, let's talk about money as an association. Just we'll touch on that because, I I've already as I've just said, we need to be paying people and do this properly as a full time thing. That's great. But if we we need to maintain our independence, so I can't just take money.
Speaker 2:I as much as, you know, we have various people Coming off and saying, can we give you money? Because we really, we really, respect what you're doing, and that's all great, and we'd like to give you this, and we'd like to we have to be very careful about where that money comes from because as you can see in the current political climate, if that money's coming from the wrong place, then you kinda shoot yourself in the foot. And the risk and our reputation is everything. The fact that we are independent, we're fighting a good fight. It's about the mission, as Dan Caesar would say.
Speaker 2:That is really important because if, say, a fossil fuel company is out there, and they're trying to greenwash stuff. It'd be really easy for them to give us, here's a few £1,000, a logo on your episode. Look, we're the good guys really, but that then kills our reputation because then when I'm on taking that money so that's where volunteers really come in handy. People who we we have we have so much stuff we could do and we need to do, That we just don't have the time for. And even when we get staff onboard doing bits and pieces, There is a certain amount of volunteering that really helps because these are real people who are in the situation.
Speaker 2:You know, that that that these are the people whose voice we're trying to amplify, and so that really helps. So if you're if you're Thinking about it and you have time, volunteering is an amazing thing. And I was talking to people about this today And oh, not today. Sorry. This weekend.
Speaker 2:So I'm an IT I'm an IT guy. That's where I come from. So I got into this by accident. I kinda fell into this through other things I did and through just talking to other people, and they were like, well, you should be doing this. You should be helping people.
Speaker 2:And and I I do a lot this sort of talking stuff. I like I like talking to people and explaining all this stuff, but the other thing I'm good at is IT. So when I We set this up. I was able to go, yeah, I can I can the domains, I can do this, I can set up Office 365, I can do all of that kind of stuff because I can do that? So when you look at this stuff, it's not just about, oh, I'm a volunteer.
Speaker 2:I wanna help volunteer. It's not just about, oh, I'm giving you a bit of my time. I'm gonna Give out leaflets or do whatever. Sometimes it's like, well, I'm a project manager. I can give 3 hours of my my week To helping with project management.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Because that's my skill.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You're basically looking for somebody who's already very good at what they're doing, and they can just jump in and do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and then that could be anything. That could be literally anything for I'm very good at talking to people on a stand. So, You know, we we are looking for volunteers to come and help us at Fully Charge and just talk to people. And, you know, when they're talking about electric vehicles or when they're talking about their problems, someone could listen to them, maybe make a few notes and hand them back to us, and we can contact people later on, try and help them.
Speaker 2:Or someone who's just generally Good on social media and fancies coming helping us with our social media a little bit, or someone who's good at copy, someone who can write tough. Someone who's got a you know, can turn a phrase quite nicely and fancies writing a few blog posts for us. I mean, there's, like, loads of things they could do for us, people could do for us if they if if want to. Literally, any we we can use any help we can get, you know, and whether that is amplifying our voice on Twitter or Facebook or or just being an ally and a friend, you know, sometimes it's all it is. Sometimes it's just nice to have a bunch of volunteers where you can just call people and say, we're trying to do this thing, but it doesn't quite sit right.
Speaker 2:What do you think? Yeah. And getting that opinion back might give us an idea to do something a bit differently, or they might know someone who can help with things. So, yeah, volunteering in general, if you can if you can do I've been volunteering for most of my life since I was at school. My school, I I I I I go in my parents' Catholic.
Speaker 2:I'm I was what was a Catholic. And my school was very I went to a Catholic school, and it was A lot of things we've done. Part of things we did when we were in the older years was we were given options as to what we wanted to do. And one of the things you could do is you could take one of your periods, And you could use voluntary time, so I I did. And I at the time, I thought it was at the time, it was a good excuse to get out school is I can I can I can get out of school for 3 hours?
Speaker 2:This is awesome. But actually, you know, we went to hospitals and Read to people and talk to people, and it made such difference in their life. And it was nothing. It was, literally, it was like, God. This is such a simple thing.
Speaker 2:I am literally playing chess with this man who is a bit lonely, or I am literally just having a chat with this woman about music or whatever, and it was such a simple thing, but it made such a difference. It kinda, like, well god, we can do these things. These small things make a big difference. Why don't we do them? So
Speaker 1:Yeah. Volitering is is is amazing. Whatever I've done, it it fulfills you a little bit and opens you up to Other things in life. Definitely. It's but but, you know, because you you mentioned sort of IT and sort of office skills, or type of skills.
Speaker 1:But I'm I'm sure you're looking for other people. People on the ground, probably even people such as lawyers or, you know, whatever. Anybody
Speaker 2:Anybody. I mean
Speaker 1:can like, a professional or somebody who's Skilled and, you know, spent some time doing something.
Speaker 2:It doesn't even need to be professional. Like, if you're if you're a mom and can handle, you know, 4 unruly children come along to one of our events, because sometimes it's like that, you know. And I'm and I'm serious. It it's just if you if you have time, if you if you, believe in not necessarily our cause, but a cause, you believe in whatever cause it is, and you Can give some of your time. Give some of your time.
Speaker 2:As much as, giving money and giving, Things is is what is needed a lot of the time. Time Time is the is the most valuable resource to people. It's the it's the thing. It it takes a little bit of, organizing, and we're working very hard, not because we haven't got many volunteers, but organizing them so their time is useful. But, yeah, just That time.
Speaker 2:You know, maybe you're good at you're good at poetry, you know, and you you're good at you're good at jokes, good at puns. Brilliant. You know, you can write some puns for our Twitter account. I mean, literally anything. Find your talent.
Speaker 2:Tell us what you can do, and we we we can we can find a way of Putting that to use, you know. So, yeah, it's just about I think it's about that belief and that passion if you if you if you're, If you believe in the cause and you want to help.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And it's a different organization when it's actually led by Ogg. When there's loads of volunteers inside, like, it's been more relaxed and kind of, you know, it just kinda flows in a different way compared to, like, a commercial organization. So
Speaker 2:But we're we're trying to be a voice For EV drivers. And so, you know, it's important that EV drivers are represented in that, and that and we talk to them, and they understand that. So even if your Even if your skill is you can talk to EV drivers, you can email back and forth to people and get opinions for us. Or if someone's got a problem, you can spend a bit I'm helping them get their problem resolved. And whether that is, you know like, I'll give you some examples of things that that we've done for For members and not even nonmembers, you know, these we we help people where we can.
Speaker 2:You know, we've spoken to or personally, I've spoken to, charge on operators where the people have problems with the CPOs. You know, kind of dead look you look at this. I've spoken to energy companies and said there's a we've got someone here who's got a problem. Can can can you help? You know?
Speaker 2:Just because they're getting frustrated or because they're getting stuck somewhere. I've spoken to motorway service stations where someone's got a parking ticket because the charger, when they arrived, they they were, There was 2 cars queuing, and they couldn't get any further in their lease, so they had to wait. And so when those those cars are done, they took an hour for each car. They plugged in. They charged for an hour, and they left.
Speaker 2:They'd been there for more than 2 hours. They got a parking ticket. You know, that's a phone call. That's an email. Someone said, look.
Speaker 2:This is what happened, and this person is really struggling with this. Can we help? And, you know, lot lot of time, it's like that's it's we we'll sort something out. We can do something. That that's the kind of things we we can do.
Speaker 2:Just being able to to listen to someone and and steer them in the right direction, appoint them in right direction. And sometimes you you get these things where someone comes to you and they say, oh, you know, like, really frustrated, really angry. And you have to kinda just say, I appreciate where you're coming from, but this is it from the other side, and this is what the problem is. And as much as you think this is the solution, It's a bigger picture we need to look at here. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So sometimes sometimes the person at the other end of the email or on the phone isn't Actually, in the right, and you've gotta kinda say well, actually, in this case, the CPO, the charge went operator, is doing this, And that's why it's like this, you know. That's why the charger hasn't got a shelter. That's why the charger is like this. Not to say that we don't need a shelter. I'm just saying that's what that's what happened.
Speaker 2:And I'm not I'm not I'm not to say that why do they put the charge over there? Well, because that would cost x £1,000 more because you have to dig up the entire car park to run cables over there. Whereas it's really simple and really quick to put a cable in here and put it here. And that's why it's in an awkward space. So that's why they can't do this.
Speaker 2:So that's why Everyone keeps parking in that spot because it's a really convenient spot.
Speaker 1:Quite quite often, like, I I had I had other people on the podcast before who, Our charger point operators or the manufactured, charging points, and they would tell me that the operator has no no choice. They're told, this is your spot, and you have to put it there. And that's it. Like, there's no, you know
Speaker 2:There's no negotiation. No negotiation. No.
Speaker 1:There's no
Speaker 2:there's no, actually, a really bad spot. Can we stick it over here? It's like, no. The power comes in there, and this is over here, and this is our plan, and it's already been approved, and that's where you're gonna have it. And, oh, and you can't have this, and you can't have that.
Speaker 2:I know you want it a bit like this, but, no, we can't do that. Yeah. So it it literally a lot of these things are are, are fixed. These guys can't make a change. And and as much as we need that change to be made, We're working on that stuff.
Speaker 2:We're lobbying the government to give clarity on it. The ChargePoint consultation Will finally be coming out soon. I can't say when, for two reasons. 1, because I'm not 1, because I'm not supposed should say when it's coming out even though I've been given an an a date, but also because with the situation in politics, because it's it's Because of the way politics works, as much as you might wanna give your announcement about what you wanna do as a you know, what the government's gonna do about this, if the political, situation changes and, you know, the prime minister is something stupid, they will hold it for a week or a month until that story dies down. Otherwise, it gets swamped and lost in the lost in the static.
Speaker 2:At the moment, yeah, it's been about 4 months. We've just had Months of, oh, it's a really bad time to release this. We're not gonna release it now. Oh, it's a really bad oh, that this happened. We can't release it now because we'll we'll lose, It will lose the the impact.
Speaker 2:So, yes, there is stuff coming about, charge point consultation. We worked really hard on that with, o seven, the DFT, to get our voices heard and with what's going on, and that is coming out soon, as part of a whole big wider thing now as well because it's been delayed for so long. The other big one coming is, accessibility, which is another one of my My passion is to make things accessible for people. So my my father-in-law was in a wheelchair for many week many years, And so that kinda gave me a real insight into living with someone and trying to do stuff with someone who's in a wheelchair, and not to say that I'm I have I have insight to it. I don't I don't know.
Speaker 2:I'm not in a wheelchair. So but, it it kinda opened my eyes to a lot of their stuff and how, we need to do better for for people. And and and this and it's not just people like, wheelchair's an easy one to say, but everyone benefits. Absolutely, everyone benefits on this stuff. Like, if I if I I I got have long COVID, so I struggle with a few things physically.
Speaker 2:My hearing is going, a lot of us wear glasses. These are all these are all things. But if you are, a parent With a child or a couple of kids, having a bit of space makes it easier. Having accessible stuff just makes easier for you. Having charges that are well thought out makes your life easier even if you're Completely able-bodied, you know, because you might have 1 kid in your arm because you're you have to carry 1 of them, or you might be just trying to Have that just just just trying to live and do stuff is is, you know, is, is complicated enough.
Speaker 2:Just come come back to your charger with your hands full of shopping. It's complicated enough, you know? So accessibility helps everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And, like I said on the on the previous episodes, 20% or 25% of the population, at some point, will end up with some disability when or not. Or is I'm sorry. At the moment, has some sort of a disability. And I I'm I'm able to body and all that, but I hate come coming up to a charger, and then just being able to barely open the door because you're so so much squeezed in.
Speaker 1:It's just it's, you know, it's impossible to for most people to do that, to, like, to to just navigate it or just bump into your car. It would be nicer to It'd be nice to have just a lot of space around you. Yeah. Just to be able to plug it in or, you know, never mind having children shopping, whatever. But just just just for for the, for the luxury of having some space.
Speaker 1:And and and I think what you know? Because at at the moment, we don't have choice when it comes to where the, the charging point is gonna go when it gets in, installed. But at some point, Having a charging point in in your car park is gonna be a necessity for most of the, people who have car parks around the, you know, properties. And more thought is gonna be given into, into it. And I hope this is gonna be happening soon, because there's so much there's so much going on into in in in the the field of Not just accessibility, but like safety around charges and, you know, simple things like just having a canopy when it's snowing or raining.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that's just another complication from planning laws. Yeah. It's not a simple thing. Only people say, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:We're gonna be up, but it's not as simple as that. It really if it was, People would do it. Yeah. It it is a it's a massive amount of hoops jump through, and it becomes a whole thing. And then there's a whole maintenance thing and a safety thing with a you know, what if it's High winds.
Speaker 2:You know, you have to make sure it can cover the winds, and if it falls over or someone crashes into it. So there's a whole, Whole bunch of stuff that comes with it. It's not as simple as people think it is. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Put it this way. It extends the lifespan of the electronics, in the charger. So they could put it they would have done it by default because it just saves them money.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Like, the the the cost actually isn't so much in the canopy. The cost is See, in the the things around it, the hoops you have to jump through, and the delay it will take.
Speaker 2:You know, it it could delay your your charger installed by 6 months, a year Putting canopy on it. Yeah. And so it's almost like, would you like a charger this year without a canopy, or would you like a charger In, you know, 6 to 18 months with a canopy. And if you're not gonna put a charger in now, then that company over there will put the charger now without a canopy? Because they wanna get into that spot.
Speaker 1:It's a fairly fierce competition. There's there's some of the charge point operators have, You know, 100 of pounds of incentives if you give them a detail of a, of a person who would like to have a charger installed on their property. It's that fierce. Like Yeah. It's interesting.
Speaker 1:Are there any other things on the sort of current affairs sort of list of things that, you know, are worth mentioning from that you can talk about.
Speaker 2:You see, it's it's hard because there's so many things going around, and there's so many things going on. I can't remember which ones are public anymore. The Motability one, which is the one that is the the, the accessibility one, We're working with Motability on it. That is, like, literally imminent. It'll be out.
Speaker 2:The the the consultation phase, it'll will be out soon. And then there's a very short period where we will have to, basically, do a survey, get people's responses to this thing, And then collate that and then get it back into the government before a deadline, and it's quite a small window we have there to do that. So That piece is gonna be huge for us, and that looks like a lot of work. And so we're gearing up for that as well. Again, it's all the stuff we do in the background to prep us for it because we've gotta get it right.
Speaker 2:And, we again, what can I say? For I think how can how can I put this without getting anyone in any trouble? That document has been written as a sort of stage one consultation. The consultation piece is out, And, we know people who have seen it, who are on that, sort of, in that doing that thing. And so we haven't insight some of the stuff, but, obviously, they cannot tell us what's on that, what's gonna happen, and what's what they're gonna all questions are gonna be asked.
Speaker 2:So we've gotta cut try and cover all the bases. But what we will do is 1 once that's public, we will Analyze the whole thing. And I and I believe it's not a short document. It's like in, I think it's, like, 20, 30 pages of documentation to go through, And we will try and pick out the things that we think we need to be addressed or we need to be spoke people can speak up about. And again, it's not just about being, disabled.
Speaker 2:This is about accessibility. So whether you are able-bodied or not able, but whatever whatever your levels. All the other thing I I only found out recently was that when they say, able-bodied versus dis disabled, that that those stats only count to about age 60. I think it might be 6 to 65. I think at that point, you just you that that's not what the number they're looking at is.
Speaker 2:Because over 65 or over that age thing, Everyone gets old and gets a bit weaker and a bit frailer. We you know, we're getting old. And so you all kinda tip into that scale. So that's and that's That's a large percent of population who are over that age, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's really important that even if right now you think that This isn't something you need to care about. It will be, because you will either get to that age or someone you care about will get to that age, and it'll be an issue. So collating that information and getting that information back and, obviously, we're gonna analyze it first and try and get a best deal where we think The things that we really need to push on and and do, and and then we can then take those results, put them all together in something coherent, and pass that Back and try and get make the changes when you get to get done. That is a big one that's coming up.
Speaker 2:That's the biggest one that's coming up in the next few weeks. On top of that, there's a whole bunch of coming up for, charging infrastructure. You've met Kate Kate Tyrrell. She's
Speaker 1:She's gonna be on one of the next episodes.
Speaker 2:Oh, she's amazing. She's doing amazing works. I'm Where again, like so I I like I like doing a lot of stuff in the background as much as I'm on on this talking to you right now. My favorite bit is if I can talk to people in the background, and I can say, you need to talk to this person over here and put people together, and they go and do something amazing. And no one ever needs to know that I was involved in that.
Speaker 2:So I'm trying desperately to get Kate LinkedIn with some really cool people so that she can do amazing things, and she is doing amazing things.
Speaker 1:Take It EV podcast. We talk about EVs from the heart. We are the podcast about the EVs where we don't just self charge, But we also plug in. Speaking of like, let let's leave the EVA aside, but you your house is pretty cool. I mean, it doesn't look you know, it looks normal from the outside.
Speaker 1:Just solar panels on the outside, but you can probably speak about things that you've implemented in in your own house as a set of sustainability measures?
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. So, yeah. My my house, which my daughter has literally just got back. She's just behind you over there. She's waving.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So she is the reason for all of this stuff, actually. So when When she was born, we had a wife had difficult birth. We ended up having an emergency c section, And I was literally left holding the baby, in, like, the the not like, the the sort Side room and while they put my wife back together again. And I was there for, like, 40 minutes just holding on to this child going, oh my god.
Speaker 2:You know? And and there was a lot of time for reflection in there with what am I doing and What have I done and my responsibilities and those kind of things. It kinda you know, people that are having kids change their life. It really does, especially if you're just Left holding the baby with no one else, and it just you know, it it was it was a bit of a shock. And all the things run through your head, like, if my wife dies, what I do?
Speaker 2:You know, how do I cope with this stuff? So so that was the start of my journey. And at that point, I'm I'm I'm I'm a huge petrol head. I'm massively into my cars. If you look at my Facebook and I haven't changed Because I think it's I think it's not, it's not right to pretend you were someone, you know.
Speaker 2:That wasn't the changing point. That was my road to Damascus as we you know, as as people say. But, yeah, like, you know, if you look at my if you look at my, Facebook, you know, you'll see pictures of me, You know, and he's worn in a Ferrari, driving a Ferrari, and he's worn in a Hummer, driving a Hummer around Texas. You know, he's you know? And I flew everywhere.
Speaker 2:We were we were I flew a lot. I flew a lot, you know, and all that stuff kinda changed for me with her birth. And so When she was born, we were we we were renting. We're renting here in Shoreham, and We'd always wanted to buy a house. It's kind of on our thing.
Speaker 2:And so when we went to buy the house and my wife is the most organized person in the world. She is amazing. But, She she she's very good at taking that emotion out of decisions, because it's very easy to be emotional about a lot of these things we do. And so we we put She put together this sort of spreadsheet document about us and what a house meant to us and what we wanted to do and the things we really wanted. And there was and we just put it all on this list, on this spreadsheet, and we kind of scored things.
Speaker 2:And so I really wanted A big dining room so that when we had our friends over and when they had kids and we had our families over, we could all sit together at Hobick Mill and be in the same room, and and so we Hobick we see another room. We have a massive dining room. It's ridiculous. But That's what I wanted to I want I want that's what I really wanted. That's for me growing up as a kid, the my my my best memories were Going right to someone's house, and we would put all the things together so that we could all sit together on a table.
Speaker 2:And that would be, you know, the adults would have the real table, and the kids would be sitting on the Table tennis table with a table cloth over it. And we might have, like, a picnic table at the end to kind of squeeze everyone in, but we'd all be sitting around scared doing these things, and I really wanted that. So that was what one thing that was my highest on my list. I really wanted that. I wanted, off street parking because I wanted to have an electric car.
Speaker 2:I wanted the ability to have solar panels because I really wanted to reduce our our carbon, our our carbon footprint. And then The the thing well, there was all these things we have on the list. You know, office space, we could have our own office in the house, and blah blah blah, and this and that, and so on and so forth. And then we looked at houses, and it was a nightmare. And we only found this place because the the picture was The pictures and the map of the house, the the floor plan didn't make sense, and it really annoyed me.
Speaker 2:And there's something, like, in my, Like in my my, my brain, that kind of won't let that that that kind of stuff go. I have to I have to know I have to know why that doesn't that doesn't look right. And so it just drove me nuts until and I I think I handed the guy who was the estate agent and said, look, I really wanna house. I wanna know what's I don't understand. That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2:It is always always sold. And I thought, I'm I'm, you know, really interested. Keep keep me on that list. I'd ring you up every couple weeks. It's still it's still go on.
Speaker 2:Not that not that I thought I'd buy it, but just because it it I couldn't I couldn't make the pictures and the the flaw that had work in my head that I was losing sleep because it was just driving me nuts. I was trying to like there's no mistake here. Doesn't the script doesn't make any sense. And, we actually met the guy sitting in the house, looking at another house, and we got talking to him, And he could see that we're a young family looking for a new place and stuff. And, the estate agent said, oh, you met the guy, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2:And so he said, Come and look at the house. At least come have a look at it. The other the got put people buying it are just taking so long. They they'll they'll probably gonna drop out. So if you're interested, come and see it.
Speaker 2:And we came in, so it's alright. Now it makes sense in my head now. They they basically missed an entire room off the floor plan.
Speaker 1:And it's
Speaker 2:like, it did it didn't make any sense. Like, I couldn't I couldn't see it. Literally, there was a there was a room missing on the floor plan. It's like, okay. Now now that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Now I can see how this works and how you can actually live here. And we kind of fell in love with it. We were on a walk. There's no road outside, so a lot of us then could run out there in safety. There's nothing to worry about the front.
Speaker 2:And then The house isn't perfect for solar, but it's good. But there's a garage out back, so I could have an electric car, and then there's space out back for storage. And, you know, it's not ideal. There were there were things that we were like, weren't perfect, and it was drafty, and it was, And it had gas and, you know, the things that we needed to do, but we kind of fell in love with it, so we kind of fought for it. And so I think it took us a year, over a year, but we got in.
Speaker 2:We got the place, and we got it. It cost it cost more More than we want to pay really, but we really wanted it. And then we came in and we just started renovating. So The one of the first things we do is get solar and the electric car. And so, again, it's about looking at that long term.
Speaker 2:And for me, it was like, this is a long term thing. We gotta do this properly. And so they wanted to they were like, oh, you know, do a, like, a 3.6 or 4 kilowatt system. You'd be fine. Do this, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2:And I was like, that hasn't worked for me. I you know, I'm I'm looking at electric cars. I'm looking at this. As much as my usage is this, I'm trying to do this. And so we got 6.27 kilowatts on the roof, 22 panels, and we got that dimmits.
Speaker 2:We wired part of the house up for it because it was the the wire in here was terrible. It cost us more fortune. We chain when we got here, the guy who lived here before had been a shop fitter, Like, for commercial. But, like, it was a black senior, but it was, like, a commercial stuff. So every single light in the house was halogen, Like, from from, like you know, when you go into these big you know, 10 years ago, you'd go into, like, a big, like, a big, like, a Warehouse.
Speaker 2:Not warehouse. Not even a warehouse. Like a commercial, like a on a high street, you go into, like, Next or go into, like, a
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Like a shop, and they'd have these ultra bright lights.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Because you want
Speaker 2:that you want everything to be super well lit because it looks nice. You go into a jeweler's and everything like, you you they wanna pull out a ring and everything's bling. It that that's the kind of look they're going for. Every light in this place was, you know, super bright and halogen. So the electricity bill was ridiculous, and we systematically changed every light in the house.
Speaker 2:Because of that, we had to go through and change them all. And then we realized and then we had to turn the heating up because the heating the house was so cold and drafty That we realized that the boiler couldn't cope with the trying to keep the house warm anymore because the lights were keeping the house warm. It was that much how the heat coming off the lights. So that would that was a big eye opener for us to realize how much heat was coming off the lights, And that required a hell of a lot of work, but it makes a massive difference to electricity bill. And then, we Just kinda lived for a while.
Speaker 2:We figured we need to live here and don't wanna do much to it. The boiler died, so we had to put a new boiler in. And at the time, I couldn't afford the air source heat pump, And I hadn't done enough research to merit doing it, so we're just stuck in the best boiler we could, which wasn't cheap, but it was the most efficient boiler we can get. And then we we were looking at other bits and pieces. In that point, I got and got involved in the Transition Town Network.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you heard of them. There's a group, and they're really good. They're called transition towns. They're all over the UK, all over the world, I think. And they are, people like you and me who are on this journey trying to make things better and do things, they do lots of different things.
Speaker 2:And In the neighboring town Worthing, they had this thing called eco open homes. And so I Thought, hey. That sounds really interesting. I looked it up, and they're like, oh, let them all these things. And these people who have done retrofits to their houses or done this and done that are opening up their houses to let people go and have a So, I went I took my little Zoe, and I went down there.
Speaker 2:I think Barbara and Senna were away for the weekend in Ireland. I just went on my own, And I wandered around, and I talked to these people, and it was really interesting because, yes, they had done all these things, and they'd done kind of this, and they'd done kind of that. But they I've done more than them for in a lot of cases. I was like, oh, why haven't you got solar? Oh, we don't really know.
Speaker 2:And I was like, no. Look at this. And I was showing them my My apps with my solar generation and what's going on. And I was, like, oh, I have an electric car. Oh, no.
Speaker 2:Blah blah. And it's like so I was taking them out for rides in the car, and I was there to see their house. Not they you know, I was at their house talking to them about their house Yeah. But showing them my house on my phone and pictures and what I'd done and taking them out in my car and showing them bits and is. And then and then they a few people meant it jokingly, but but, like, but when we were talking, they were like, why aren't we at your house?
Speaker 2:What your your you've got this stuff, you can do all this. You're you're telling us stuff. Because I was at I see that their insulation and their bits and pieces, but I've done
Speaker 1:Which is important as well. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And but I'd we've done of these things, they hadn't done. Yeah. Arguably, they've done the right thing. They've done the installation first, and then the difference of later on, I'd kinda come in, the bit backwards. But, you know, that's you don't know.
Speaker 2:You're kinda doing it. You do it as you think. You you've did the best best for you. And so they were like, you we should be looking at your house. You should be talking about this stuff.
Speaker 2:And I was like, oh, I don't know. I think about it. And so the following year, They they mail they messaged me and said, look. We're doing another one this year. There's 18 months later.
Speaker 2:We're gonna do another one. We're doing e eco and home scan. We're gonna do this. We'd really like you to open up your house. I don't live in Worthing.
Speaker 2:Don't worry. We're we're gonna we're gonna open up to worthy we're gonna open up to showroom for your house. So it was, like, wording oh, and he and here's here's a house, like, you know, 3 miles away, but go and see this guy's house. And by that point, I've done a few more bits and pieces than I'd I'd done. So and that by by that point, we had the Powerwall in as well.
Speaker 2:So we bought a Powerwall then. We were, according to Tesla, I was the 3rd person in the UK to get a Powerwall to, because, again, I just pestered the mic at the ringing them and saying, where where is it? Where is it? Am I waiting for it? I ordered it.
Speaker 2:Where is it? Where is our power wall? A combination of that and a combination of knowing exactly what I wanted to do. And and, also, weirdly, I think it was one of those ones where because I'm quite active in this stuff and I was on forums, I was doing bits and pieces. They could see that I was gonna be a good ambassador for it, and so they made sure that I got it really early on.
Speaker 2:So I think it was literally, Like, some people got theirs a bit earlier. So there were a few customers who got theirs a bit earlier because they were VIPs, And then I was the I was the number 3 on the the, like, non VIP list. And even then, it was because my sort of couldn't do it on a Saturday. So I had my my morning was on a Sunday, and they did it. They'd already installed.
Speaker 2:2 other ones had been installed on the the Friday and the Saturday before I got mine. So, yeah, it was it was I had that, and that was really interesting. People really wanted to see it because, like, well, you take the Powerwall. You know? It's literally a Big white block on the wall.
Speaker 2:You you it is it's it's not so I'd look at it. Like, right now, you can't even see it in my garages because there's there's stuff all around that you can't get to it it's on my garage, and I've got things piled up. But that was a big deal, and so, loads of people came to the house and Talk to us about what we'd done, and, it was really interesting because there are people who came on that day were like, oh, hi. Well, I met you here A year ago or 2 years ago, and we talked to you, and we bought an electric car because of what you said, or we bought solar panels because of what you said. And it was really weird.
Speaker 2:There were people there were house owners. I met them we had dinner together as a group that evening after the event, and they were like, You came to our house to like, a year and a half ago. And because of you, we have solar panels. We've done this, and we did that, and we have electric car with and was like it was really cool. It was like, oh, it's nice to know that you helped someone, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that that's kind of been what we do here. So since Since then, just before the pandemic, we would set through another one. And, again, I was gonna open up my house, and I was gonna run an EV event as well because, obviously, it's just EVs. Had it all set up to the EVs by the sea, down by the seafront, but the pandemic hit in.
Speaker 2:But before that point, we had done The triple glazing, which just makes the house amazingly secure and sealed, and we got rid of all the drafts. Feel the doors. Oh my god. The doors. It was just like, We've I do you probably heard you you see me open the door.
Speaker 2:It opens like an airlock. It's like as the door opens, you know. It's just amazing. It just made such a difference to the To the heating and the feel of the house and the quietness of houses. You know, we have quite a main major road on the other side over there.
Speaker 2:It's the slip road to a motorway, but You can't hear it in here. So we've done that, and we've done rest of the bits and pieces. We've done some low water stuff, low flow water. We've got, hot composts are out back to look after food waste. We have, the big one actually happened last year, so this is after the event was supposed to happen.
Speaker 2:The event was then canceled, and nothing happened. But last year, we did the air source heat pump. We got rid of gas in the house completely. So I have a gas fireplace over there, which is literally wired to nothing. There's a it's a hole where the meter was.
Speaker 2:Octopus e octopus came in and took the meter out, which is awesome. We had someone knocking on the door this week and said, oh, we wanna check your, your meters. We wanna check your gas. I'm like, what? And they're like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:We need to check your gas. We literally haven't got gas. I've gotta check it. So the man came and checked, and he goes, right. We can see it's been done, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2:We will cap you on the main line now so you won't have gas coming into because, obviously, the line still run. The main line still run. Yeah. We're gonna cap that off because, we're never having gas back in here. We don't need it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. There's no point having The gas to your property Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because it's not safe. Yeah. Get rid of it. Don. Bosch.
Speaker 2:Done. So yeah. So that that sort of thing. And then Which we've done all that stuff. We've also done lot of, the home automation stuff is I like I like my computer stuff.
Speaker 2:So we have, Home automation here for things like electric blinds and lighting, which means that lights come on and off at certain times, and we can In the summer, I can set the blinds to shade the house. We get the sun coming in very much at the front during the day, and shading, it keeps the house cool. And then when it gets, like, like, late afternoon, we can open up again and let light back in. But it's only, like, you know, when we're at work, it different thing. The dog's here.
Speaker 2:The dog doesn't really care for light. The shades are open or closed, but it just means we can open the shades up later. It keeps the house cooler. Dog's happier. We're, you know, we're happier.
Speaker 2:And in the winter, we can have we can have the light the shades open as long as they need to be open. They automatically close at sunset. Lights will come on. All those kind things all run automatically. That and that automation stuff goes back to before we had the Powerwall.
Speaker 2:We were automating, washing machine, those kind of things all get automated. And so it's a follow on from that. We kind of expanded it to how we could use Automation to offset our power. So it's things like charging your car off peak. All the things that you do normally are charging, like, don't do it as much anymore because we have the Powerwall, so we're a bit lazier with it.
Speaker 2:Hence, when you came in, this went along while I was running the washing machine. But but, No. We can just that to run overnight. In fact, I had to do a dishwasher overnight, moiety dishes. Dishwasher can run overnight off peak or cheap, depending on the time of year.
Speaker 2:In the summer, we run it during the day because, obviously, the solar panels are cranking out so much power.
Speaker 1:That's what we do. We, we put everything on during the day because sun
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, the thing is that we we have with the battery, well, I like the battery charge. We're using a much more electricity at the moment because it's cold, and we now have gone to air source heat pump. And that's that that is a lot more electricity. But, again, once you get to April, we'd probably be pretty much self sufficient.
Speaker 2:So before before this point, with the power war from from May to September, We were probably 99, 98% efficient in the house, self self sufficient in the house from solar and Powerwall. That's gonna change this year because, obviously, we have no gas now because we're now heating the house on on electricity. But but that but that previous from May to September, that was Everything in the house, electrical, that included our cooking, and it was running 2 electric cars. And we were completely self sufficient Between the Powerwall, between the zappy and charging, and you using solar, and being clever with your stuff. And that's because we went for a massive, massive solar array.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. You've you've got quite a big big array. And, yeah, the the funny thing about solar is that, if you installed it like, ours has been installed in 2017. If I look at the solar panels now, for the same amount of money that I paid for the solar panels 5 years ago or what yeah.
Speaker 1:5 years ago. I can get pretty much 40%, 50% more output, on my roof.
Speaker 2:And and not not just not just cost, but, efficiency. Yeah. So the same amount of panels will get you so much more power.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's what I mean. Like the the just yeah. We've got 14 panels. And I could I could, I could literally have A third more.
Speaker 1:33% more power output from the same amount of panels on the roof. They'll be cheaper. And You know? It's just amazing how much this, technology improves. What I'm trying to say is, basically, if you're on the on the fence when it comes to solar, like, just Jump on it because, a, the electricity is go going up, and b, it just it just makes sense from sustainability.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like like you tell me, but if you if you have a roof, especially if you have a good roof that's facing south or Well, our roof isn't even facing south, and it's been amazing for us. Just just get on with it. So, like, we have 6.27, kilowatts up there. It's 22 panels. It's 14 at the front, 8 at the back.
Speaker 2:And so we get quite a nice spread over the day. We oversized our inverter because we when when I Did this you know, I was looking to the future. Powerwall 2 wasn't a thing. Powerwall 1 was a thing, and Powerwall 1 required, in an inverter. And so we oversized our inverter so that if we put a Powerwall 1 onto it, it could candle, 6 kilowatts.
Speaker 2:As it happened, we got a Powerwall too. So that that oversized inverter is I well oversized for this. We're not the most efficient thing up there, but it's kinda where we went. That's fine. That In a year, produces 6 and a bit megawatts of power in a year.
Speaker 2:6,000 kilowatt hours of power. And that will pretty much apart from the cars and probably the heating now, That pretty much runs the entire house. It's more than more than our house usage for an entire year. Yeah. So Do it.
Speaker 2:If if if you can do it, do it. And now now, of course, we have a battery which allows us to store that power that we generate during the day And use it at nighttime. And then in the winter, we use Octopus Go because we were electric cars, we're on a cheaper tariff, And we then charge our battery overnight using cheap, clean electricity, and then run our house for the day. So it we we get double bites of cherry on the on the whole power battery thing. But even without a battery, solar It's just a no brainer for what it gives you the with the cost of electricity at the moment.
Speaker 2:Just just do it if you if got the money to put into it. We've just invested in Ripple. Have you you looked at Ripple?
Speaker 1:Nope.
Speaker 2:So you know what Ripple is. Right?
Speaker 1:Explain it to people.
Speaker 2:Okay. So, so Ripple is a, crowdsourced community wind farm. I think it's where the There are various descriptions for it. This is how I see it anyway. It's it's like, basically, you buy a A share.
Speaker 2:A share a percentage of a wind farm. And then that Percentage, that share generates power, and then you can then, get the profit from that power. So it kind of works. It's not quite as simple as saying that's the power for your house, because it's not as simple as that. The way I think it's it's it's it's not as simple to explain as we think it is, but the way I see it is this.
Speaker 2:They've done a deal with Octopus, and so If they give if Ripple gives Octopus, say, a 1000 kilowatts of power. It doesn't kilowatt hours of power. Then, they that because the price isn't set by, By what Ripple provide at? The price is set as a market price? Yeah.
Speaker 2:What Octopus do is Octopus say They they will, take that power from Ripple. They will give Ripple that money. Yeah. Over there. So they they give they give Ripple the, rather give Ripple the entire amount of money, they give Ripple the cost of electricity as generated as a deal with Ripple.
Speaker 2:And then the rest of the money, which is what they should pay to Ripple, actually gets paid to the investors. So minus a certain percentage for overheads, so it's a, You know, whatever it is. And so you then get a refund on your electricity bill, which is the profit from the generation from your Wind farm. You're part of the wind farm. So it's not as simple as simple things.
Speaker 2:There are much better videos online about this. I'm trying I'm trying to be as as Truthful and correct as I can be, as I know. But in essence, you invest in a wind farm and you get money back for it. But for me, it's So this house generates about 6 megawatts a year. With my electric cars with both electric cars and now with the air source heat pump, We've blown out of the water.
Speaker 2:So for me, it's about people people like people offset their power. They can you can you can buy stuff to be green and offset your power. For me, it's literally I can do that by having a share in a wind farm. And I know that, Personally, I am responsible for generating this amount of power. The 6 megawatts up here, and it's gonna be about 7 or 8 megawatts at Ripple.
Speaker 2:Well, that more than covers all the power I use. Yeah. So I personally am am covering our usage in the house. Yeah. That's how I see it in my brain.
Speaker 2:Now I'd say that from an absolute an absolute place of privilege. I am very privileged to be able to do this. Most people can't, but I am. And this is This is my privilege, and this is how I choose to use it. So yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, if you can do this stuff, It's important because the more of us who are doing this, the more people are putting the money into the likes of social enterprise and Ripple, these wind farms, these these renewable energy things. The the more mainstream it becomes, the cheaper it becomes for everyone else. And the more that people See it and invest in it and and do the right thing. We need to get off our reliance of fossil fuels. We need to move away from that and move to renewables.
Speaker 2:And the more of us who do this and it's the same reason why I do all these things in the house. I spent the money on the triple glazing. Because if more people do triple glazing and did that, become cheaper for everyone else. The people came behind me. And and for my own selfish reasons, I do that.
Speaker 2:Because my selfish reason is I have a 10 year old now, and that's my selfish reason. If everyone anyone says why do I do all this stuff, it's completely about My daughter. It's about being able to look her in the eye in 10 years' time, in 15 years' time, in 20 years' time. And when she says, What did you do? I can say, look, you know, I was a bad person with this stuff.
Speaker 2:I flew everywhere. I drove fast Cars, and I loved all this stuff. But when you were born, I changed, and I did this. And this is what I did to make amends for the stupid decisions I made when I was younger. And that's really important.
Speaker 2:And that's my that's my selfish piece. That's why I do this stuff. That's my motivation. Just being able to do that makes means I can sleep at night knowing that Yeah. I'll be able to I'll be able to look her in the eye and say this stuff.
Speaker 2:Not that I judge my parents' decisions because, obviously, I do because we all judge our parents' decisions. But But they they I think when you become a parent or when you, you know, you you kinda realize that, they people are doing their best. They're everyone's doing their best. And so I wanna absolutely show her that I'm doing my best, but also I want her to know that if she doesn't like something or sees something and thinks that isn't right or or that needs changing, that She can make that change, whether it's a small change personally for her or it's a big change by rallying people around her, on Going to find the people who are doing this and standing up and making a difference. And that's what I need to do.
Speaker 2:That's that leading by example is important.
Speaker 1:It is indeed. This is one of the reasons I'm doing the podcast is to just talk to people and spread the message. Yeah. Because it inspires people when they hear somebody else. So that, you know, we're social animals.
Speaker 1:We're, we're we we reproduce ideas. We see and we do if we like it. You know? And having a podcast is one of the my ways to contribute. So even if it's a small audience that you know, even If it's 1 person sometimes emails me and says, I've done this because I've heard somebody on the podcast doing it.
Speaker 1:Then I'm like, happy days. I've done I've done my work.
Speaker 2:Exactly. That that feeling you get, it's it's impossible to like, like, I I look at, like I've I've spoken about this a minute a little while ago when we talked about people coming to the house and talking about things, or that I'm meeting people on the street or Things that say, oh, I got I got I did this because I saw you do it. You know? Just knowing that someone else did it, someone else has done this piece, and someone else all Someone's willing to just answer the phone and help you and doesn't isn't trying to take your money, isn't isn't interested. He's doing it for good reasons.
Speaker 2:He just wants to be helpful. He's trying to help. That that's important. But, yeah, the feeling you get when someone says, oh, yeah. You're the reason I did this, and thank you so much.
Speaker 2:It's really helped, or You were the final push when you needed to go and do this thing and, you know, and and yeah. It's cool. It's just a cool feeling. And it it's really funny because there are people who I really admire Really admire. Right?
Speaker 2:I I went to the house, and I was like, oh my god. You're amazing doing all these things, blah blah blah. And that's that's so cool. And then they came to me and said, oh, you know, I've I've got an electric car because I did this. So it's like, hang on a minute.
Speaker 2:You're you're just you're just like, it blows my mind because, like, they're so much further ahead of all the they do. I got a really good friend of mine, and she is amazing. I love her dearly. And she is, She, her entire life has been about helping kids and, and doing things for autistic children. And her entire life's been dedicated to that.
Speaker 2:And so she goes into schools and does these things and does these interventions for These children who are really struggling with life. And she's just the most amazing, lovely person, and I completely every time I speak to her, I'm completely blown away by how cool she is. And she said to me, like, a little while ago, oh, oh, you know, we put solar panels on the house, and we're looking at our electric car because of something you did. That just blows my mind because she's just like she her what she does is so much more actionably worthy than anything I've ever done in my entire life. And She she was, I don't know if inspired is the right word, but she was motivated to make that change because I'd done it.
Speaker 2:And because I'd Done it, and I do this, and I do stuff. I say, yeah. It's important. Be seen. Be be be out there.
Speaker 2:Be Doing this stuff, it makes a difference. And I and I'm not I'm I really am not one for being out there. I'm great at talking to people. I love having a chat with people. I'm very good one to 1.
Speaker 2:I love this kind of stuff where you go to a like, we met in a field last year by an air an airfield, and we just chatted. And I love that. And I love I love talking to people and laugh. What's your experience, and what's going on with that? Have you tried this?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's really interesting. Can we do this? Can we do that? I love that kind of stuff to it, And that's led to all these things and doing things for journalists and doing things in in, on the news and in print, all those things. But I'm One of the things that we're looking forward to when we get a CEO for EVA England, and one of the reasons I miss Jill so much because Jill's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Is that is that I can then just just slink back a little bit and let somebody else be out front because I'm really happy to do it Face to face and talking to people, but, I I'm not quite as comfortable doing, The camera stuff and the podcast. This is different because me I I've spoken to you a few times now. I see you as a friend. So this is much this is much Over muchness in that sense. We're having a chat in the same way we'd have a chat Yeah.
Speaker 2:About the things.
Speaker 1:And I've got a small audience of people who like this sort of stuff. So we, you know.
Speaker 2:And no one's gonna no one's gonna
Speaker 1:hear it.
Speaker 2:It's fine.
Speaker 1:Exactly. We're amongst friends.
Speaker 2:But but it's weird when It's weird when someone sends you a text message saying, I just saw you on the news. It's just like or with a with a screenshot. It's, that's really strange. So I'm really looking forward to kinda just moving back a little bit and not being on camera quite so much and and and just doing I I I wanna help people. Quite able to help them quietly in the background.
Speaker 2:And I I really like like I said, we like you to talk to this person and putting people in touch that way. As I was doing before you came, I was upstairs Emailing and saying, I met this person or or a fully charged, live is coming up, and there was a vendor meetup this week. So people who are gonna go They did a presentation, and they they took on what's going on and what's going on. They announced the the free charge in North and some other bits and pieces. And I love I love going to town, talking to the guys.
Speaker 2:You know, it's one of the few times I get to go out and, You know, say hi to Dan and say hi to Robert and just and the team there that like, I like, the team are are awesome people. I got to hang out and chat to Devina this time, and she's lovely. I don't know if you know. She is look. I'm I'm not gonna say anything more.
Speaker 2:Actually, she is now part of the team there, so you'll see her on social media and stuff, but she's amazing. And, yeah, Just getting to hang out with those guys and talk to them, but there's so many people there just who I see and talk to. So, Kate was there from The charge safe stuff, and then, Graham Cooper from National Grid was there, and then the guys from EV Cafe And and girls, Sarah Sarah was there as well. Saying hi to them and talking to them. But today, it was very much, right.
Speaker 2:Who did I talk to? Right. This person should talk to this person because that that there's something going on there that I know about privately that actually they're both doing this thing, and that'd be really cool. Yeah. And then there there's a I spoke to a guy who's a YouTuber who does, not there.
Speaker 2:I show I'm not I'm so busy, but I was in the car driving back from there. I talking to a guy who's a YouTuber about some of the stuff he's doing. I was like, right. I really need to introduce you to, these people over here because they'll be really interested in what you have to say. And, actually, I need to talk to the fully charged people and see if they have Maybe there's something they can do with you, because actually you'll be really good to be up on stage talking about your experience, because it's really important that people hear this stuff.
Speaker 2:And that's what I like that's where that's where my comfort zone is. So yeah. So when the CEO comes and when, when we can do this, you maybe you won't see you won't see me as much On camera or on TV or on the radio or in print. Maybe it won't say my name as much, but hopefully, you'll see me a lot more at things. And if you ever wanna come and talk to me And you have questions or I can help, just just get in touch.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You you're you're virtually at every event that I've ever been to. So, Well, alright. Well, I'm not gonna extend any with any questions like this. A good closing
Speaker 2:Oh, cool.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Statement. V. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 2:Of course. Anytime. You know where I am, and, if there's if there's anything I can do, you know where to get me. V. Alright.
Speaker 2:Take care, buddy. Cheers.
Speaker 1:Well, that's it for the episode 35. If you got up to here, thank you very much. You're amazing. Just like I said before, Twitter, YouTube, Patreon, And, you know, just share wide and you know? Please kinda just let me let me know that, you're listening and enjoying this content.
Speaker 1:It means a lot. And here are some jokes just because you're, you've waited so long, and you've been listening to the end. EV. Joy. Why did the electric car finish the race early?
Speaker 1:Had a short circuit. Booyah. My my son kept chewing on electric cables. So I had to ground him. Hey.
Speaker 1:Hey. Waka waka.
Speaker 2:Do you
Speaker 1:need a current license to drive an EV?
Speaker 2:A current.
Speaker 1:I see what you did there.
