Episode 120: Liz Allan and Professor Richard Allan - A Festive Reflection

Episode 120: Liz Allan and Professor Richard Allan - A Festive Reflection.
Join Liz Allan and her husband, Professor Richard Allan, for a festive and insightful Christmas episode of the Electric Evolution Podcast. Celebrating two years since the podcast’s inception, Liz and Richard reflect on their personal and professional strides toward sustainability.

From the early days of reducing carbon emissions to installing solar panels, transitioning to an electric vehicle, and removing fossil fuels from their home, they discuss the trials, triumphs, and lessons learned along the way. Highlights include the importance of choosing reputable installers, the challenges of managing energy efficiency, and the evolving landscape of EV technology.

In addition to their sustainability journey, Liz shares significant milestones for the podcast, including hitting 10,000 downloads, 170,000 YouTube views, and reaching the 120th episode.

Liz Allan Bio:
Liz Allan is the Managing Director of Full Circle CI and the host of the Electric Evolution Podcast. Passionate about sustainability and decarbonisation, Liz combines her expertise in continuous improvement with a deep commitment to enhancing the EV driver experience and driving positive change in the charging infrastructure industry. Through her podcast, Liz brings together thought leaders, innovators, and experts to explore the journey towards a more sustainable future.

Professor Richard Allan:
Professor Richard Allan is a climate scientist at the University of Reading, specialising in the study of climate change and atmospheric science. With decades of experience, including work with the Met Office, Richard is deeply involved in advancing research that addresses global climate challenges. In addition to his professional contributions, Richard actively integrates sustainable practices into his personal life, collaborating with Liz to decarbonise their home and inspire others through their shared experiences.

Richard Allan Links
Website: https://research

Transcript

Liz Allan [00:00:02]:
So welcome to this week's podcast episode. It is the Christmas podcast. And if you're watching us on YouTube, you will see I have a lovely Christmas hat. And joining me is my husband, Professor Richard Allan, who also has a lovely Christmas hat, but you can't see your bubble on it, Rich. You need to move your bubble over. There we go.

Richard Allan  [00:00:25]:
That's it. Guess it's Christmas, would you?

Liz Allan [00:00:28]:
We both look very attractive, but we're trying to be very festive on this episode. So, it's more of a reflection that I wanted to talk about and bring Rich on for this specifically because it's been just over two years since this podcast was released, and so many things have happened. I wanted to give this kind of overview because I started it. After all, we wanted to go on a sustainability journey, didn't we?

Richard Allan  [00:01:03]:
Yeah. I think we've always talked about it, but this has given us real impetus to put our money where our mouth is.

Liz Allan [00:01:12]:
That's that's very true. And so, for those of you who don't know Rich, he works as a professor of climate science at the University of Reading. So we've been together since the year 2000. It sounds like it's the cue for a song there. And Richard was working for the Met Office at the time anyway, right? So it's kind of like we've been on this journey through your work and now, obviously, what we're trying to do as a family.

Liz Allan [00:01:53]:
But, I thought it'd be a good idea to discuss a little bit of the things that we've done, in the house to the house, and we've had a few little issues with as we've gone through it, haven't we? So do you wanna start? Where did we start, Rich?

Richard Allan  [00:02:12]:
Well, I suppose we started with various things like, you know, I cut out meat up my diet, and we were reduced and then stopped flying, that kind of thing. So you're cutting out your carbon emissions from things you're doing as part of your job and living your life. But then, I suppose the first thing we got into was the saving sessions, didn't we? We sat in the dark, with all the electricity turned off, trying to, you know, reduce our use of electricity, and you get a few payment backs, for example, from Octopus or whatever energy provider we were on at the time. So we started doing that, didn't we? And then I suppose the next step was thinking, well, everyone's getting solar panels. Well, you know, let's look into it. And so that was back in April 2023, wasn't it?

Liz Allan [00:03:07]:
Yeah. Around around that. I think we've been thinking about it for a little while anyway, haven't we? But it was one of those things that percolated in our minds. And it was somebody you worked with, wasn't it, that had actually used a company that installed their solar panels and their battery storage?

Richard Allan  [00:03:26]:
Yeah. Well, we were already looking through, you know, another company, and it turned out that my colleague at work, Pete Innis, was also going through a similar process to what we were and turned out that our our company was stalling, so we switched, didn't we, over to the company that they used.

Richard Allan  [00:03:47]:
They came and did their survey and worked out, you know, we worked out how many panels we could have on our roof, and we thought it would be 11, but in the end, it ended up being 9. So that's 9 lots of 425 watt output panels, which gives you 3.8 kilowatt peak amount of power. So that's the total amount of power we can generate. And then, obviously, you wanna smooth that that that power input across the day, so we got a battery, didn't we? Yeah. Along with that.

Liz Allan [00:04:21]:
And I was gonna point out that it wasn't just about installing, was it, with the previous company? This is why I was gonna point out the fact that make sure you get a good installer, a reputable installer. Because prior to that, and I'm not gonna say the name of the company, we did have one company come in that said, no. You can't have solar panels on your roof. And, no, you haven't got the room for an air source heat pump. And, no, you can't have, a battery on the side of your house.

Richard Allan  [00:04:56]:
It would be very surprising if you knew the name of the company.

Liz Allan [00:05:00]:
And we're not going to go into that. Are we, but you know, you have to bear in mind that there will be an element of risk with those organisations, but it and it's not just the big organisations. It's the people who work for them. So if you are going through any of this journey, and they come back to you and say no. Try other companies. Don't just go with the one. That's the main isn't it? Because that was that was quite gutting at the time, wasn't it, really, to find out that we were being told that, no, you can't have all this stuff, you know? So that it was it was a bit of a hard thing.

Richard Allan  [00:05:40]:
Yeah. And there there were as with all these things, there's always gonna be teething issues. Like, we we ended up part-boarding our loft because we thought the battery was going and going there. And then, of course, they arrived on the day and said, oh, no. We just put it on the side of your house. Which worked fine but then obviously you need to have a canopy over that to protect it from heavy rain and things like that. And I suppose the other regret that we've talked about is at the time given our energy usage, we opted for what we could afford, which is the smallest battery, which was 5.3 kilowatt hour storage battery, which, you know, would have been fine for the kind of usage we had back then, but things change. And now, you know, we wish that we'd got a much bigger battery, but then, of course, you're paying more for bigger batteries.

Richard Allan  [00:06:30]:
So

Liz Allan [00:06:30]:
Yeah. I mean, at this point in time, so just before Christmas, we are we are talking about possibly seeing if we can afford to do what they call, Daisy chaining batteries together because we've got an electrician who's pretty decent. And, actually, he's talked about maybe being able to do that. So it's possible. We are kind of looking into that, but all of this stuff costs money. So it's one of those. It's been a long-term position for us, hasn't it? You know? And it takes to do them.

Richard Allan  [00:07:04]:
Yeah. Yeah. Time and money. And, you know, it probably cost, you know, of the order of £10,000 for solar panels and battery and installing, but then, you know, we probably didn't get the best deal ever and there's other community projects and other, funding you can get hold of now. So it just depends on when it's right for you, I think, in terms of making a move and what you can afford. And then, of course, the other aspect has to do with batteries, and that leads on to the next step in our journey, which was getting an electric vehicle, which is the fact that you suddenly realise how big EV batteries are compared to house batteries. So rather than a 5 kilowatt-hour battery, our small EV, our secondhand EV, which is what we could afford, has a range of 180 miles or so.

Liz Allan [00:07:55]:
In the summer. Well, in the summer, it's about 180.

Richard Allan  [00:07:58]:
Yeah. The battery size is, you know, 30. Is it 39 kilowatt hours? 38.5. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, you know, hugely bigger. So, the future is the two-way charging. You can use your EV battery when it's not in use as a house battery, and it makes so much more sense.

Liz Allan [00:08:19]:
Only a limited number of vehicles will have the capacity and capability to do that. I know that this group and the WhatsApp group I'm in have some very clever people working on this at the moment.

Liz Allan [00:08:34]:
But I, I know, out in Australia, there's a chap I interviewed earlier this year. He's said that his Tesla, I think it was this year or last year, was powering his neighbours, you know, kind of houses when they had a power outage. So these things are there, and people don't realize that that kind of vehicle to grid, vehicle to load, vehicle to x, which are all different terms. It's it's it's kind of it's there. It's it's the future. It's just gonna take a little while.

Richard Allan  [00:09:08]:
Another thing you may not realise is how much energy is used to charge your EV. Compared to what you can generate from your roof, it's more. That's why it's crucial to take our next step. We've got the EV, maybe in August 2023.

Liz Allan [00:09:26]:
Yeah, just a little bit before that, we actually had the Zappi charger, which works with solar, installed at the same time as the battery and the solar because if you're going to do any of this, if you can get a company that does all three, then obviously, you theoretically pay less on installation fees because it's all going in at the same time.

Richard Allan  [00:09:49]:
Yeah. So we we were EV ready. And then and then, you know, while we kinda went through different regimes instead going from the saver session trying to reduce our energy usage to suddenly having solar and batteries thinking, let's not use any energy at all. You know, we can we can get by. We can equal this energy from our battery and not use any energy. And then suddenly, you get an EV, which you realize uses so much more energy than you can produce that it it it swamps everything. But then it's crucial that you can get a, an overnight tariff, like, you know, intelligent octopus where in fact, the amount you're paying, 7 p per kilowatt hour is a tenth of the price of what you'd pay, like, more like 70, 80, 80 p per kilowatt hour on the public network. So suddenly, you you do all your charging overnight.

Richard Allan  [00:10:40]:
You put your dishwasher on overnight. If your wife's away, you put your washing machine on overnight, but then she complains if she's not away. And then, you know, so that was our next stage. And then we found that initially, we were, you know, just using the battery, weren't we? We were charging up the battery from the solar and then using that. Then we realized when it's so cheap overnight, you might as well charge up the battery and then use that because we can export it at 15 p per kilowatt hour, which was twice the price we were paying for charging up the battery in the 1st place. So it made you a little bit, not much of money, just charging up the battery and then exporting anything you don't need, which may not be how we should be doing it from an, you know, reducing your carbon emissions point of view. But in in terms of monetary, that that seemed to work well. And so that was our second regime. We were, you know, charging stuff up overnight and using solar and battery power in the day until this year.

Richard Allan  [00:11:47]:
The other thing to mention, I think, that's been quite a big thing this year is that we've stopped using gas. We no longer have fossil fuels coming into our house. So, probably back in June this year, we used our last meaningful bit of gas, perhaps doing a little bit of heating overnight. Then we switched over to we had a water tank, so we heated the water tank overnight at a cheap rate, so we didn't use gas for that. So the last bit of gas was in June, and then we got a heat pump in October, so we completely removed the gas supply, didn't we? So we have to pay the standing charge. But then that's going through to the next regime of suddenly realising how much energy that you're using on a heat pump in the winter, especially, you know, when there's you've got anticyclonic gloom like we're suffering at the moment. There is no sunlight to charge your battery up in the day.

Richard Allan  [00:12:49]:
So suddenly, you're spending vast amounts of energy making your heat pump work. And, of course, the heat pump is operating efficiently because kind of for every kilowatt of energy that you're using from the grid, it's adding another 3 kilowatts perhaps in the whole process of what, you know, a heat pump does. So it's making you use energy efficiently, but you still use a lot of energy. So overnight, you can still use the cheap rate, but during the day, you can't. So so that's I do wanna just next stage.

Liz Allan [00:13:24]:
And I do wanna just point out here that we didn't just go out and buy a heat pump for the sake of it. We, was it in the summertime? We had our boiler. We had a maintenance done on the boiler and we'd had a bit of an error with it in the cold weather last year. So when that was sorted out, they flushed all the radiators. And when they came for the maintenance, there were problems. There was 10 years old, was this this boiler. We were told that it was, like, the creme de la creme boiler by the person who'd installed it, which was the most biggest loaded tuck you've ever heard. But, anyway, that's another story.

Liz Allan [00:14:04]:
But but, actually, the boiler was, was dead, really. Luckily, because of the fact that we had solar panels and we had, a kind of like a little booster for the hot water, and it was in the summer. So actually, we didn't have any issues with it, did we? Because of the fact that we had that.

Richard Allan  [00:14:24]:
But also we we were heating the tank up overnight anyway, so we weren't using the the gas for that. So we weren't really using the the boiler. And we had always planned to get a heat pump, but like you said earlier, one company said, oh, no. There's problems. It's it's gonna be difficult. And then we got another company in, that knew you knew that were much more positive. And, Yeah. So that that that again had teething issues.

Liz Allan [00:14:54]:
It's one of those things, isn't it? So, it was Daniel Sareford, that I interviewed from Aira earlier this year on the podcast. Bizarrely enough, about 2 weeks after I interviewed him, that's when the boiler died. So so and as as Richie's saying, yes, we have had a few teething issues, but they have been pretty good and and sent people out and sorted out the problems that we've had. So and and and like you say, it's it's about getting used to these things, isn't it, as well? And how they perform compared to having a fossil fuel boiler and trying to, you know, keep them at a kind of a constant temperature, which is good.

Richard Allan  [00:15:42]:
That's right. Because there's the there's the conflict between, you know, wanting to use it overnight when it's cheap, but of course with a heat pump, you need it to be kind of constantly running and you can, turn it off for short periods. And so for example, some tariffs have a a cosy tariff where it's the cheap cheaper rate kinda goes throughout various periods of the day, so you kind of optimise the use of your heat pump at the cheaper times. But it's it's a kind of learning process. But it it it does use a lot of energy in the winter, but then, of course, not in the summer. And and we can heat up the water tank overnight, for example, on the cheap rate.

Liz Allan [00:16:18]:
And just going back to what you were saying about about the VTEC and a pull out of, electricity. I was I wanna point out as well. I was I drove a lot. So for my job as a consultant in the work that I do, I drove a lot. I still drive a lot. And, actually, at the time, when we had our VW Golf, I was paying we were paying about £75 a week, £75 a week for petrol. When I plug in and yes. As Richard said, we've got a smaller battery.

Liz Allan [00:16:52]:
When I plug in, it usually costs us about £3. Doesn't it? It's about £3. Right. To charge up

Liz Allan [00:17:03]:
So, actually, I've talked about my lovely friend, Vicki, previously, and her thinking that charging is a faff, but charging, we are lucky that we've got a home charger. Not everybody's gonna have that option, But for us, home charging is is so easy. You know? It's literally turn it off, flip open the, you know, the charge port, and plug in, and it's it's less than a minute. It's not as if we have to stand around in disgustingly smelly petrol stations anymore holding the thingy in while you're freezing your bits off.

Richard Allan  [00:17:37]:
But it but it's probably being, you know, too putting too rosy a picture on it saying, oh, it's all absolutely fine. Because as as with all these things, there there are always a few teething issues that you have to get through. But also, we we I mean, you've talked on your podcast a lot about, you know, range anxiety and things like that, but I think there's a new type of anxiety that I'm suffering, which is, you know, electrical implement, and you are when when things stop working. And it's not a tangible thing that's stopped working. It's something that's happened electronically that doesn't quite work. Maybe some type of Internet booster or some dongles not communicating.

Liz Allan [00:18:15]:
So you turned something off by accident because she didn't realise she was turning the wrong thing off.

Richard Allan  [00:18:20]:
Turn the the the router extender. Yeah. So, yeah, there there are there are all these things. So, you know, you do have to appreciate that it it is a learning curve, isn't it? And it can be frustrating at times, but then you learn, and you get through it, and you realise that what, you know, what you're doing is is helping the planet, but also it's helping your your your money, your bank balance as well. I mean, we we were, you know, we've got not many panels, have we? But we've got 9, but we've kind of, you know, generated nearly 3,000 kilowatt hours of energy over the year. And that compares to, say, in 2023, we only used about that, you know, because that we didn't have the EV for long then, we didn't have a heat pump. Whereas now in 2024, we've used electricity, we've used nearly 5,000 kilowatt hours. So much more than the previous year because we're charging electric vehicle.

Richard Allan  [00:19:15]:
We've got heat pump just starting. So we're importing all that. We're getting some from the sun, and we're also exporting so we exported 1600 kilowatt hours. So we exported kind of some of what we generated and some of what we generated went into the house. So there's all these yeah. You are saving yourself a good deal of money, But I think more crucially from our journey point of view, we we really wanna reduce our carbon emissions. There are a lot of ways you can do it, such as stopping flying and changing your diet, but your domestic heating and electricity is also a huge personal thing you can do.

Liz Allan [00:19:58]:
Definitely. And I was gonna say, you get excited saving money when we export electric, aren't you, in the same way that I get excited when I get a mile back when I've got regen running on the on the EV. So so I get when I'm going downhill, I'm gonna give me a mile back. Please give me a mile back. Yeah. And it's kinda like that. So isn't it? So so, yeah, so on moving on, we've also had, on the personal side this year, something that that I didn't realise would affect me. Well, I did realise it would affect me so much, which was our our wonderful son, James, going to, going to university for the first time at age 19, started university started the University of Exeter for the first first, year doing, biosciences, in September.

Liz Allan [00:20:52]:
So it took him down to Exeter, and and that was a bit of a wrench. For those of you that saw me before he went, you would know the state that I was in. I was a little bit on the teary side, Wasn't I, Rich?

Richard Allan  [00:21:05]:
Oh, yes.

Liz Allan [00:21:08]:
But but actually, do you know what? I'm probably people who are listening and watching you don't realise how all this production stuff works for this podcast. So, Tom Stanhope, I was going to say some thank yous anyway. Tom Stanhope, bless his heart, is an absolute star. He's the producer of the podcast. But James, our son also does the analytics for the podcast and he sets everything up on, on the different, he sets it up on YouTube, and he sets it up on kind of, the audio channels and stuff like that. But he does the analytics side because he's a mathematician. You know, he's a mathematician like yourself, Rich. So, you know, he likes a bit of analysis and what have you.

Liz Allan [00:21:47]:
So that's that's been he's still doing it whilst he's away, and, actually, he's just joined us back for Christmas, which is which is lovely. So I drove all the way down to Exeter yesterday and back with 2 charging stops, 1 on the way there, 1 on the way back. Excellent experience on the way there with Pogo Charge. Absolutely blooming fantastic. I've got to say intuitive customer experience. Good on the way back. It was a great experience, but the lighting in the car park where we were, where we were for a different CPO, was pretty horrendous. So that was a bit of an issue, and I probably wouldn't have wanted to charge there on my own at night, 
I'll just put it that way.

Richard Allan  [00:22:31]:
At least you have James with you.

Liz Allan [00:22:32]:
Yeah. I did. I did. So James was there with his mobile phone shining the light on the on the RFID because I'm like, I can't see where the RFID thing is. Oh my god. So, yes. But, but actually, that in itself has been, been a really, really important journey for us. It's been a bit of a bit of a roller coaster, hasn't it lately?

Richard Allan  [00:22:55]:
Yeah. So the car was weighed down with washing on the way back, wasn't it? And, obviously, our energy usage is gonna go up over Christmas. I'm really angry about that.

Liz Allan [00:23:04]:
Well, because he's brought his Xbox back as well.

Richard Allan  [00:23:06]:
Well, he's brought himself back. Yeah. From an energy user.

Liz Allan [00:23:34]:
Right. Okay. Let me just have a look back. So I've done this personal reflection. I wanted to do a little bit of a a reflection of the podcast. I've kind of covered a little bit about the fact that we've we've been around for a couple of years now. We hit the 10,000 download mark very recently. We've also had 170,000 views on YouTube, and I have to say thank you ever so much to Michele Liddle.

Liz Allan [00:24:15]:
Michele Liddle is my second in command at Full Circle CI, which is obviously my little business. If it wasn't for Michele, the amount of effort she puts into our stats and, sorry, our social media push for the podcast and for everything else would be brilliant. So, so, yeah, so that's, that's been a real milestone. So, 2 years and 10,000 downloads and the views of 170,000 are incredible. And I've gotta say, I was looking back today at the number of guests, Rich, and you were number 2, weren't you? It was kind of me first, did my little introduction, and then you.

Liz Allan [00:25:09]:
And when this episode goes out, I'm just gonna tell you that we will be episode 120, which is just madness. But I wanted to just kinda say and Rich hasn't got a lot to say at this point. I can't believe who I've interviewed this year. The biggest the the the dream interviewee, I have to say, of course, Rich, you are one of them. But Robert Llewellyn was just like a dream come true moment for me. He's an actor and a sustainability champion. He's somebody who we, as a family, love. We all love Red Dwarf anyway.

Liz Allan [00:26:03]:
But all the work he's been doing with Fully Charged and Everything Electric and the live shows has just been fabulous. And we even got James into Red Dwarf as well, didn't we? Also, I've had other fascinating conversations with Chris and Julie Ramsey about their Pole-to-Pole EV Expedition. Amazing. If you've not listened to that or watched it, please do. God, they are just such amazing people. Melanie Shufflebotham from ZapMap, Edmund King from the AA. I couldn't believe it. This was all this year.

Liz Allan [00:26:40]:
Elis Spiezia, an EV racing driver, just watch out for him. That lad's like he's the same age as our son. He's 19. He's gonna do fantastic stuff. As I said, Daniel Sarefjord from Aira Heat Pumps. Fleet companies discussing decarbonisation. CPOs, the charge point operators, talking about EV infrastructure development. I also had experts discussing modular homes and heat decarbonisation. This has just been a fantastic year, You know? And Full Circle continuous improvement is a small business, but our voice has been getting a little bit louder this year.

Liz Allan [00:27:25]:
Earlier this year, we created a charge point operator diagnostic called "Charge Up Your Success, " helping CPOs identify potential improvements in the EV driver experience. We conducted our first major research project, surveying over 200 EV drivers and trying to understand their experiences with the charging infrastructure. Out of that came the white paper, which took months and hours of writing. Richard told you that he hadn't seen me for quite a long time because I was working so hard on it. Wasn't I?

Richard Allan  [00:28:14]:
Yeah. I forgot who you were.

Liz Allan [00:28:17]:
So "Plugging into the future", our white paper took so long. I'm sorry if you've read it. I know it's not short. It's not a short read. But, actually, I hope, and I think a lot of people have actually got quite a lot out of it on the other side. So, if you have read it, please, I'd just like to thank you ever so much for that. But, you know, these are just some of the things that have gone on this year and, like, like, I say, such notable areas of learning. I can't even tell you how much I've learned.

Liz Allan [00:28:53]:
If I look back, I still think it feels like it's just a cold June. But when I look at what we've been doing as a family, you know, as a business, just everything. And honestly, the people I've met have just been amazing. So I'm gonna finish this now because it is Christmas, and I don't wanna keep you away from your turkey and your, oh, sorry, if you don't eat meat or your

Richard Allan  [00:29:19]:
Veggie vegan.

Liz Allan [00:29:20]:
Your vegan Christmas roast, not roast and stuffing. By the way, I still eat meat but have cut beef and lamb out. So I'll say that one under my breath. He's very good. But thank you to everybody who listens and watches the episodes. To the amazing guests who have who shared their knowledge and experiences, again, thank you, Tom. As I mentioned him, the podcast producer, Michele, James, and everybody who supported this journey over the last 2 years and this year. And I want to thank my husband for joining us today for our Christmas episode.

Liz Allan [00:30:18]:
Thank you. It's just it's been an incredible year. I hope everybody else has seen this podcast evolve over the last 2 years. I didn't know what was gonna happen. I didn't see it coming on 2 years plus, but it's just amazed me. So, thank you to everybody. Thank you, Rich. It's been brilliant.

Liz Allan [00:30:44]:
And I'm so pleased that you could join me. I know we're in the same house, but you know what I mean?

Richard Allan  [00:30:48]:
And well well done, Liz, for your brilliant podcasting.

Liz Allan [00:30:54]:
Oh, thank you. Thank you. And to everybody else, seriously, please keep spreading the word about the podcast. There are so many. There's even, like, next year, we've got people lined up to talk about loads more stuff. And all in this sustainability, decarbonization, and climate change space. So spread the word, like, share, and comment on social media posts to thank everyone for listening and watching. And I shall see you next time. Bye bye.

Richard Allan  [00:31:31]:
Bye.