Show Notes
Emilie Romain was talking about heat pumps on YouTube before almost anyone in the UK knew what they were. In this episode of Energy Unwrapped, Mick sits down with the OG heat pump content creator to hear how an accidental career pivot led her to front EcoBubl's videos in full overalls, why she thinks too many people gatekeep renewables by keeping it technical, and what it's like returning to an industry that's finally caught up with her. They also get into women in the trades, the shifting public mood around heat pumps, and Emilie's new role at Midsummer Energy helping homeowners find solar. A great listen for anyone on their own renewable energy journey.
📊 Real-world UK energy data, analysis and tools: 👉 https://energy-stats.uk
🔥 Need help choosing a trusted heat pump installer? 👉 https://www.trustedheatpumpinstallers.co.uk/
⚡ Switch to Octopus Energy (we both get £50): 👉 https://mickwall.octopus.energy/
More from Energy Unwrapped with Mick Wall
Can you really get paid £1/kWh to help the grid with a home battery? I sat down with Pete Last from Axle Energy to explain how virtual power plants work, and how batteries, EV charging, heat pumps and hot water cylinders can earn money with grid flexibility.In this Energy Unwrapped deep dive we cover what demand flexibility actually means, why wind farms get turned off when it's too windy, how Axle Energy works alongside suppliers like Octopus Energy, what time of use tariffs like Octopus Agile get right, and why a battery without solar can now pay back in 4-5 years. We also dig into smart EV charging, vehicle to grid, heat pump flexibility without losing comfort, and why your hot water cylinder is a 10kWh battery.Whether you have solar battery storage already or you're looking at energy storage, electric cars and how to cut UK energy bills, this is real data on what works, what it pays, and where the numbers don't match the marketing.In this episode:- What is grid flexibility and why wind and solar need it- How Axle Energy's virtual power plant aggregates home batteries, EVs and heat pumps- £1/kWh home battery exports vs 27p price cap explained- Smart EV charging at home and £10/month rewards- Octopus Agile, Octopus Energy and time of use tariffs- Heat pump flexibility, hot water cylinders and whole home energy management#AxleEnergy #SolarBatteryStorage #OctopusAgile #EVCharging #HeatPump⚡ Axle Energy Referral (free to join and £25 sign up bonus)👉 https://vpp.axle.energy/landing/grid?ref=R-ZWPYRZOD📊 Real-world UK energy data, analysis and tools:👉 https://energy-stats.uk🔥 Need help choosing a trusted heat pump installer?👉 https://trustedheatpumpinstallers.co.uk/🎙️ Energy Unwrapped Podcast:👉 https://energy-stats.uk/energy-unwrapped-podcast/⚡ Switch to Octopus Energy👉 https://mickwall.octopus.energy/⚡Switch to E.ON Next👉 https://tidd.ly/4xD3E6R⚡Switch to EDF Energy👉 https://tidd.ly/4a2Xbbr
Heat pumps get talked about like they're brand new technology — they're not. On this episode of the Energy Unwrapped Podcast, I sit down with Nathan Gambling, lecturer in plumbing and heating and host of the Beta Talk podcast, to trace how Britain actually got its heating: from single-room fires, through town gas and the conversion to natural gas, to the combi boiler boom — and how heat pumps have quietly been running in the background the whole time, including one that heated a Norwich building from the River Wensum from 1945 until the 2000s.We get into:- Why "heat pumps are not new" — Graeme Haldane's 1927 experiments and John Sumner's 1945 Norwich heat pump- How Britain's town-gas-to-natural-gas conversion became one of the biggest planned engineering operations in peacetime history- Why Canvey Island became the UK's first LNG terminal- Why radiators were never designed to be scorching hot — and why that still trips people up with heat pumps today- Why the UK became the world's biggest gas boiler market, and what that legacy means for the heat pump transition now#HeatPumps #EnergyUnwrapped #UKHeating #RenewableEnergy #HeatingEngineerI'll leave a link to my trusted heat pump installer directory and the Energy Unwrapped podcast below.📊 Real-world UK energy data, analysis and tools:👉 https://energy-stats.uk🔥 Need help choosing a trusted heat pump installer?👉 https://trustedheatpumpinstallers.co.uk/⚡ Switch to Octopus Energy (we both get £50):👉 https://mickwall.octopus.energy/🎙️ Energy Unwrapped Podcast:👉 https://energy-stats.uk/energy-unwrapped-podcast/
Hot water cylinders are one of the UK's biggest untapped energy storage assets — and most homes don't even know it. In this episode of the Energy Unwrapped Podcast, I sit down with Pete Armstrong, CEO and co-founder of Mixergy, to unpack a decade of engineering behind the smart hot water cylinder.We get into how top-down heating and stratification let a single 200L tank store roughly 10 kWh of usable energy, why there's something like 10 times more energy sitting in the UK's hot water tanks than in Dinorwig's pumped hydro plant, and how curtailed wind power in Scotland could be turned into free hot water for half of Scottish homes instead of being switched off.Pete also walks through why Mixergy moved to local, cloud-independent control, what the upcoming Secure Smart Electricity System regulation means for appliances like this, and where hot water storage sits against home batteries and EVs in the flexibility conversation.#Mixergy #HotWaterCylinder #EnergyStorage #UKEnergy #GridFlexibility #EnergyUnwrapped🎙️ Full Energy Unwrapped Podcast:👉 https://energy-stats.uk/energy-unwrapped-podcast/📊 Real-world UK energy data, analysis and tools:👉 https://energy-stats.uk🔥 Need help choosing a trusted heat pump installer?👉 https://www.trustedheatpumpinstallers.co.uk/⚡ Switch to Octopus Energy (we both get £50):👉 https://mickwall.octopus.energy/
How does a gas engineer become a heat pump specialist?
In this episode of the Energy Unwrapped podcast, I speak to Glyn Hudson and Trystan Lea from OpenEnergyMonitor.