
In this episode of the Fully Charged Show Podcast, Imogen sits down with Johan du Plessis, CEO and founder of Tepeo, to explore how his company is transforming zero-carbon home heating. Tepeo's Zero Emission Boiler (ZEB) is a smart, efficient, and...
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Welcome to another episode of the fully charged show podcast, where today we're catching up with Johan du Plessis, who is the founder and CEO of a company called Tepeo. Now, Tepeo have pioneered something called the Zeb, the zero emission boiler, which is a very handy alternative to a heat pump. But in this episode we're not going to go in tremendous detail about the product itself. If you are curious about the product, then do make sure to check out the description box below for links to their website and also for links to our previous episodes that we've done on the Zeb itself. And of course, if you want to find out more, you can come to our live show. Meet Johan and the TEPEO team in person. And our next live show is at the London XL on the 16th, 17th and 18th of April, so we'd love to see you there. Details of how to come are of course in the description box below as well. But in this episode we really get into the weeds of what it means to be a climate tech founder here in the uk. Some of the challenges that that presents and some of the conversations that Johan has had to have around the challenges of pricing electricity, impact that has on gas and how that can help accelerate the uptake of these zero carbon electrification technologies, it is truly fascinating. It is truly helpful to really understand just what it takes to succeed in this market. And there's some good nuggets of advice for any potential founders out there as well. So before we get into that, a very, very quick advert break.
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Try everything electric at our exhibitions in Australia, Canada and the uk. Next up, London.
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Johan, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast this morning. You've got a wonderful setup there. You look like you're in sort of a local radio station.
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Thank you. This is our office. It's not a radio station, but we like the bright colours, you know, it gives you. Gives good vibes.
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And also I love your slogan that heat your home, not the planet, which I can see emblazoned on the wall behind you.
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Yeah. Is it, is it backwards or is it. No, it's backwards in the camera. Yeah. We've been using it for years and I think it's such a great way of really kind of cementing the culture of the business and what we're about, you know, that really is at the core of what we're trying to do, help people to stop burning fossil fuels, to heat their homes.
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Now, there are so many people who are listening to this who will know precisely who Tepeo are and what a Zeb is. But. But for those who are not familiar, can you give us the elevator pitch? Who is Tepeo? What is the Zeb?
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Yeah, absolutely. So Tepeo is a climate tech scale up. We started in the UK about seven years ago now and we have a product we call the Zeb. It's a smart heat battery. And for those of you who don't know what a heat battery is, it's a product that's basically a direct replacement for an existing fossil fuel boiler, but it stores energy as heat and then it puts that heat into your home, into your radiators, your underfloor heating, in the same way as a boiler. So we call it a heat battery because it's storing energy as heat rather than energy as chemical energy, as many of your listeners will have, you know, chemical batteries at home. But we do that with heat.
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And I suppose the clever thing about it as well is that you kind of charge it up with heat when electricity is very cheap and then you can use it later on. So it's got a lot of clever, very sophisticated control systems in there as well.
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Yeah, I mean, yeah, there are lots of clever things, lots of clever things about it, but in principle, in the core of it, that's what we're trying to do. And so one of the great advantages of the way we store energy is that it's much more energy dense than batteries, so we can store a lot more energy in a smaller space also at a fraction of the cost. But essentially we're doing the same thing as you might do with a battery. So, yes, storing energy from the grid or from soda and then putting into your home when you need it.
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And the really neat thing, and I don't want to make this a zeb versus a heat pump. I'm sure we'll get into that in a little bit more detail. But for those for whom a heat pump may not be appropriate for their home, the really cool thing about the Zeb is that it's a bit of a plug and play solution. So take out your boiler, plonk in a zeb and off you go.
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Absolutely. I continue to be very supportive of heat pumps and I would never say bad things about them because they are brilliant. But, yeah, I think the reality is there are millions of homes that don't just fit the needs of a heat pump. You don't have the outdoor space or require too extensive upgrades in terms of radiators or whatever. And yeah, the Zeb is a plug and play solution. We Take out your gas boiler. We put the zeb wherever you want actually, in your house. Plumb it in and it just. And you go, you know, where you go. It is a bit bigger than a, than a traditional gas boiler, but other than that, you don't need to change a thermostat and you can continue to live and heat your home as you were used to, but now just using electricity rather than gas or oil.
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Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, I think it was sort of October, November last year. I was looking at getting a zeb in my property. I live in a Victorian terrace. And it was amazing what the team did because, you know, as a Victorian terrace, it's really, really narrow to get from where the boiler currently is to the front door. And as you mentioned, like, they're a little bit heavier, they're a little bit bigger. The zebs and the team, they can do this thing where they can map, like how it will go through your home. So you don't need to be worried about your walls being bashed. And it was all looking really, really wonderful. And I was extremely excited. We couldn't go ahead with it. Not anything to do with Tepio, not anything to do with the zeb, but because whoever the builder was on our property beforehand, in, you know, pulling back the washing machine, pulling back the boiler, we discovered all sorts of horrors which we're gonna have to deal with before, before we proceed. So that's sort of somewhat put it on pause. Okay. So we actually, we caught up about this time last year, I think, and caught up on the podcast, what have been some of the big things that have happened or any kind of product developments that have since this time last year.
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A lot has happened in the last year. It's been, well, for us, I think the world has had quite, quite a shock of a year, hasn't it? But, you know, for us, we, we were looking to grow pretty rapidly through to the end of last year. Unfortunately. We, I suppose we were working to raise a large amount of investment which ultimately we didn't get over the line. And the main reason was that the, you know, while I think the change to a Labour government has been very positive on the whole for heat decarbonization, the pace of change is just a little bit incompatible with the growth rate that we want to see in a startup and investors want to see. So we've had a little bit of a pause in terms of the way we're going to grow the business. So we, you know, we, we had to make some redundancies and make the team a little bit slimmer. But we're absolutely sort of still committed to the mission. You know, we're still installing zebs around the country. But the big things that happened last year was, I think there has now been a fundamental shift in the thinking within Whitehall and within, within government around how we're going to decarbonise heat. And it's taken a lot of work from me and other stakeholders in the industry to help the government to understand the variety of different ways we can decarbonize heating through electrification. But there's now an acknowledgement that heat pumps are brilliant, but we can't put all our eggs in one basket. So that's been really positive and I think we'll see over the coming year that start to translate into some real, really positive policy changes. So a lot of the. A lot of the good stuff that's happened has probably been a little bit intangible, but certainly on the inside, in terms of discussions with policy makers, it's been really, really positive.
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Gosh, because it's such a complicated journey that you're having to embark on, because, you know, on the one hand you're developing a new technology which is really efficient and low carbon and brilliant. On the other hand, at the same time as developing that product, you're having to educate policymakers and government about its significance. And I think what you're very delicately, sort of being extremely diplomatic about is that we have Here in the UK the boiler upgrade scheme, 5,500 pound grant that households can get to upgrade their boiler to a heat pump. And I suppose the argument is that whilst that's brilliant, it is somewhat. It means the government have chosen a particular technology rather than a particular objective, and allowing lots of different organizations conjure up some brilliant solutions that fit that objective. And then you've had to go in and educate around. Well, there are heat pumps, but there are also a plethora of other solutions that could be applicable in various different scenarios. Quite a founder's journey, I would say.
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Yeah, yeah, you could say so. I mean, you're absolutely right. We're creating a technology category, so we're having to start from explaining to people what a heat battery is. We're actually even battling within the industry to get a general acceptance of what we mean by a heat battery. And then obviously the government needs to come along on that journey as well. But it is so key, you know, I mean, I don't like subsidies. No one likes subsidies. The principle of them, because subsidies by their nature have to be focused around a specific product that the government can have confidence is going to do the job. But the reason we have them is because we have all these other market structures that basically are skewing everything towards more gas boilers. And those are very difficult things to fix. The government knows about them, but they're very difficult to actually change given sort of politics. And so what, you know, it's, it's really, it's a real shame, but we get so many leads from all sorts of partners that we work with where people have signed up to get a heat pump and then be told for a variety of reasons during the survey process or whatever that their home is not suitable, they haven't got the space, you know, we can't put a heat pump in your home. And they get pointed our way and they go, oh, this is a brilliant solution, we really like it. Okay, so how much is it going to cost us? And then, you know, then they realize that the government's not giving me any subsidy to do this and they feel let down because, you know, they really want to get on this journey to decarbonize their home. They were going to give, they were going to be given seven and a half thousand pounds subsidy to install a heat pump and not pay vat. So around ten thousand pounds worth of support. And because, just because they happen to live in a home which is not suitable and they now have to stump up the full cost of a low carbon solution and they're not going to get any support. So that doesn't feel fair. So that's, that's the situation at the moment. And anyway, I think it's, it's going in the right direction and the government is acknowledging the need to, to try and broaden the scope and to be a little bit more agnostic about. Well, not agnostic, but sort of just open up to more technologies because we're going to need more than just heat pumps.
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I mean that fingers crossed that it is in the right trajectory and that's incredibly positive news. But irrespective of whether there are subsidies or not, if you're comparing to a heat pump or not, the ZEB is still, there are still plenty of savings that you can achieve just by having a ZEB compared to a gas boiler. And you have a really, really wonderful tool on your website where you can scroll down to how much energy you use a year, the size of your home, and then it pops out. The savings is there like a real sweet spot where you get the maximum amount of savings when you go for A zeb versus a gas boiler.
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So I'll start by saying you could save money on gas. We're not, you know, we can't. It does depend how you're going to use your heating and you know you won't save money. But one of the things that has now happened actually as of 1st April for the first time is that the gas price cap is now above the off peak electricity rate that you can get on some tariffs from not just octopus now but I'm not going to advertise all the different suppliers but a variety of energy suppliers. So there are multiple tariffs now that have that really low off peak period that is below the gas price. And then if you factor in the higher efficiency of a zeb versus a gas boiler, you can save money now. And many of our customers do save money versus a gas boiler which is a really great place to be given we've still actually got this market skew so it should be even better cheaper. But yeah, we, you know, in terms of the, the best size house or the sweet spot in general, the more thermal, as a general rule, the more, the, the more storage you've got in your home the better because you can make more use of, of peak times. It's not as simple as that but. So you know, we typically find that people in smaller home, say two or three bed are probably going to save the most. It depends how insulated the home is. So if your heat demand is a bit lower, you're probably likely to be able to save more money. If your home is larger, you're probably not going to save money. It will heat your home absolutely fine but it's going to cost you a little bit more to run. So you know Robert Llewellyn's home for example, you know he's got his EB and his home is probably a little bit on the large side. Um, it still heats his home but it's not going to save him money versus if he was, you know, still on his old lpg actually probably would versus LPG but certainly not versus a gas boiler.
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Yeah, and his home is, I mean it is, it's a timber structured home. It's quite drafty. Oh no. He will really tell me off for saying that because he has got some new doors which have eliminated the main source of the draft. But he is contending with, with an older property that is slightly larger. So yeah, it's not, certainly not easy. But I think this is also why your slogan is so good because heat your home, not the planet Obviously that refers to the impact of going for a low carbon solution or zero carbon solution. But also if you are implementing this technology in your home, it's not done in isolation. You also need to be looking at your insulation, your drafts.
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Yeah.
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So that you can maximize the value that you're getting from whatever you have. Zeb or a heat pump or whatever. Now you've kind of alluded a couple of times and actually before I come to this, I am. I was at an event on earlier this week and there was a representative from OVO and there was a representative from eonnext and they had a bit of a like, well our off peak rate is 8p and the other was like, oh it's a 7.5 but all day or whatever. Whichever way around it was, it's like this is what a time to be alive.
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Exciting.
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You've kind of alluded very delicately a couple of times the fact that the mechanism that we have in the UK is that gas is incredibly cheap and therefore the incentive to switch from a gas boiler will only become greater when the cost of electricity can truly come down. How are Tapio thinking about this? And I suppose what would you, if you could have anything, be an ask from the government or, I don't know, the utility providers or whoever, what would you want to see to help accelerate the uptake of zero carbon heating solutions?
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Well, I mean I'm spending about a third of my time focusing on, well, probably more on some, on all of the barriers and blockages that we have to installing more low carbon heating. I mean the very tepio or specific ones are about having a more level playing field with heat pumps so that we can compete. There are enough customers out there who just are desperate to decarbonize and we have, I mean our customers are incredible people. I mean they're happy to pay more upfront than a gas boiler at the moment because they don't get that support and that sort of thing. But to get to mass market, to really drive uptake of low carbon heating in the same way that is now happening with EVs, we do need some fundamental things to change and we have similar asks to most of the rest of the industry actually. I mean electricity is too expensive. There are two. I'm going to get a shot for oversimplifying this or saying something wrong. But broadly there are two mechanisms that make electricity really expensive or a couple. But when you buy, when you buy gas to burn in your gas boiler, there are no additional charges on it. So the electricity rate about a Quarter of what you pay to your energy supplier is paying for levies and other things. Many of them aren't even related to energy directly. They pay for fuel poverty schemes and that sort of thing, which I would argue is more of a welfare issue. But then you've got things like even, even gas turbines. When we do have gas, gas turbines generating electricity on the grid, they have to pay a climate change levy, which basically makes electricity price even more expensive than the gas price. So there are, yeah, just, just to.
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Check that I've understood that correctly, because we have here in the UK marginal pricing. So you start with the kind of, the price being set by the, the cheapest rate. So let's say we've got lots of solar, the strike price, electricity would be set by solar. But as our demand increases, eventually we'll need to turn on a gas turbine and that will set the electricity price. But what you're saying is that there's a level which then makes the price really, really high and you get that huge delta in the, in the different strike prices.
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Exactly. So it's exacerbated by multiple things. So yeah, we have a, we have a paid as cleared auction system for an electricity market, which basically means that, you know, if, if we all bid different prices for electricity and obviously a solar farm is going to basically say I'm happy to generate for almost nothing because it doesn't cost me anything to generate. But so your gas generator becomes the marginal, the price setter. But they've also had to then pay a climate change, a levy on top, which again exacerbates the electricity price when, if you just take gas from the gas grid in your home, you're not paying that price. So it's obviously going to be a lot cheaper to burn gas in general than the flat rate of electricity, certainly. So there are lots of things going on. There's the review of electricity market arrangements which is going on in the background. The government is working at what the options are for rebalancing the levies between electricity and gas. There are some simple and neat solutions out there and, but they require a lot of political capital that I think the government probably hasn't, doesn't feel that they have at the moment. So, you know, there would be some difficult decisions to make. But until, my view is, until we change these fundamental imbalances, we are not going to get the change that we need and we're going to continue to have the most expensive electricity prices in Europe for a long time and it's all avoidable, which is the really kind of upsetting thing about it all.
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It's so mad, isn't it? Because you can just imagine that there is generally, I think, quite a lot of consensus that this is a sensible thing to do. I mean, we've recently had the seventh carbon budget published a few weeks ago. And in there, sort of point number one is electricity needs to be cheaper in order to ensure that electric technologies or electrification makes sense for all consumers and business, et cetera, et cetera. And yet you can almost imagine, imagine that there are various stakeholders in this meeting room. They're like, right, this is the objective. Oh, gosh, it's quite complicated. There's quite a lot to do here. And it's because it's untangling decades of, you know, changes, I suppose.
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Yeah, you know, it's, it's, and it is there, there are so many sticking blasters that have just been put on top of each other over time. And, and, and many of the decisions were made for good reasons back in the day. You know, things like the eco funding and warm homes discount and these sort of, these sort of things. You know, if you go back 15, 20 years, electricity was more carbon intensive than gas. But also the real reason why they put all these things on electricity was because, well, everyone has an electricity connection, so everyone needs electricity. Whereas actually there is a good chunk of the, of the, of the country that is not on the gas grid and millions of homes are not on the gas grid. So if they at that stage had applied, would decided to apply those costs to gas, then not everyone would be paying them. So that's why it went on the electricity cost. What it really should have done is gone into general taxation at that point. But, you know, the treasury never wants to take on more of that burden. So it seemed like the easy solution, but what it means is now these things are now baked in and they're very difficult now to shift because what are you going to do? You can't now put it all onto gas because that potentially penalizes people and the treasury certainly hasn't got a bucket load of cash to accept that into taxation. So it's a tricky subject and I.
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Guess at the same time, whatever decisions are made, they have to be done in a very equitable way. So exactly as you say, if all of the levies were suddenly put on gas, actually there's a huge number of households for whom they can't presently afford to switch to a zero carbon technology and then they get penalized and then suddenly, you know, whether you're A net zero household or not becomes. Could. There could be a huge social divide, which you don't want to see that unintended consequence either. So I can see how delicate a balance it is. But there, as we say, there is that consensus need to get going.
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We need to do something. My. The counter argument is by not doing anything, it's also awful because, you know, you're actually. You're a higher chance of being on fuel poverty if you are on direct electric heating at the moment. So, you know, there are millions of people around the country who are also in fuel poverty because they're not on the gas grid and they have direct electric heating, which is horrendously expensive. So not changing it is also not fair. And my own personal view is that, you know, you should change the market to really reflect the true cost. And so we should rebalance it properly. And then, you know, we have a welfare system and we need to help people who. Because, you know, there. I think it's almost a quarter of the country now, fuel poverty, so there are lots of people that need that support. But that shouldn't be a reason for artificially making, you know, artificially making gas cheaper. That should be dealt with through, Through. Through support for those people, through other mechanisms. But, you know, yeah, I'm not. Luckily, it's not my job to deal with it because I know it's difficult.
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But it is phenomenal. How could you have imagined or foreseen that you would be involved in these sorts of conversations when you've first came up the idea for the, for the Zeb?
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No, not at all. I mean, obviously not, because otherwise I wouldn't have done it. Yeah. I often say you do need to. You need to have an element of enforced or true real naivety when you start a business, and particularly in the climate sector, because, yeah, you end up wearing so many hats and taking on so many things. You know, um, as I say, I'm spending at least a third of my time now on policy and regulatory work, which kind of is, yeah, is definitely not what I sort of set out to do. But then you realize that these are the thing. These are the barriers that are, you know, we're trying to decarbonize heating with the brake with handbrake on. And those are the things we have to really unblock if we want scale.
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I suppose there's. I always, whenever I bring this up in a podcast, I always immediately forget the name of the curve. But it sort of tracks, you know, where you are in your. Well, in dealing with Any difficult challenge and there's value being early on in the process when you're at peak stupid, where you have minimum experience, maximum confidence and you don't know what you don't know. And then you dip into the Valley of despair where you have a little bit more experience and you know precisely what you don't know. And then you come out of the other side, which is the slope of enlightenment, I think it's called, where you've got through the real grind and you're like, right, I'm experienced and I can see the upward trajectory. Where would you say you're on the curve at the moment?
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We are, we are, we're on the bottom of the slope of enlightenment. Yeah. We are very clear on, on the challenges. We are very aware of how difficult it is going to be or is, is, is to change them. But we can see the rays of hope and we is coming and we, I think, I think we're there. We're definitely not kind of marching up it very quickly, but we're ready to go.
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Yeah, I, I had a chat with Andy Palmer on the podcast last week and I was saying how I'd spoke to my brother in law and he'd said, ah, to get across that, you know, the Valley of Despair, you need a bridge of comedy. And Auntie Palmer said, or you need an industrial strategy, one or the other. I thought that was really, really brilliant. But I guess for any founder who's leading a business, your role is to wear the hat for the most important job that needs doing at a particular point in time. And it's fascinating to hear how for you, that is not a technical hat right now. It's a policy hat. And I wonder what advice you would give to other founders or to your younger self when you first set out on this journey.
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You didn't prepare me for that one.
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I didn't, sorry.
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That's a, that's a tough one, I think. I mean, you're absolutely right. You have to, you do have to wear, you have, you have to wear the hat that you need to, to make sure you're, and make sure you're focusing on the most important thing at every stage of the business. And there will be stages where you have to do things that you don't love doing. But I do think that when you are the CEO and the founder, you need to be able to, you do need, you need to be aware that you are the biggest cheerleader for the business and you are the one that's going to drive the pace and that means you need to be all over the most important things that are ultimately and really try and understand what really is going to drive value and the change that you're really after. And I'm lucky enough that I've built a brilliant team. We've got a really, really good core team in the business. That means that I have got confidence that I can delegate and just leave other brilliant people to get on with other things. So I've been out of the engineering for a long time now and, you know, fortunately the product works really well. And actually that's not the thing that's limiting our growth. But I think being able to sort of delegate and just let go is so important because if you don't, you just. It will kill you. There's too much. There's too much to do. I mean, you still, you know, you're still involved to an extent. You're still. I mean, I, I still have, within every week I'm dealing with, you know, the, the details of software and hardware and, you know, the engineering and production and marketing and sales and partnerships and everything else at the same time as, you know, policy and regulation and getting stuck in all these other things. And so you still have to be connected to it all. But, yeah, you're right, you do have to. I know my weaknesses, and we all have weaknesses, but I love a spreadsheet and I find it really comforting to just get stuck into a technical problem and solving it. And when I get stuck doing that too much, I know that it's probably because I'm putting off doing what I should really be doing, which is going to speak to another politician or something.
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I can totally empathize with the safety and security of a spreadsheet. You know, what's happening in a spreadsheet, it's black and white. And I have, I mean, I haven't founded a company, so it's a very different thing. But I know that there have been instances where I've put things in a, in a spreadsheet when actually they should have been in a Word document. But I'm like, but this is safe. It's all in lovely boxes. This is glorious. That's our safe, safe territory.
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Safety net.
B
I think that's incredible advice. And I sort of building a picture as you were talking there. And it's almost like when you start a business, you start on the sort of ground floor and then through virtue of the challenges, being more complicated and having that team that you trust and having to be aware of more things, but not being so in the weeds. It's almost like you're in an elevator that's going up so that you have that increasingly helicopter view, but you're ready to dive into the various different pockets as and when you need. For anyone who's listening to that, you're probably thinking, that makes no sense. I was doing some elaborate hand gestures at the same time. I've just seen a note that I've written here that I want to bring to your attention because you mentioned a little earlier on that there are many of your customers who just really want to be zero carbon and are really interested in the technical side of having a wonderful solution. And I wrote Net zero dads on my paper here. And have you come across this term?
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No, but.
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I was made aware of this particular terminology yesterday and it refers to doesn't have to be a dad, it doesn't have to be male. But we'll use this as a catch all term. But a net zero dad is someone for whom they have maybe solar, maybe they have a heat pump, maybe they have a zeb. And if you ask them about their home, they will immediately get their phone and show you their solar generation, how much energy they've consumed, because it's all obviously on a lovely display on your phone. And I thought that was so brilliant. And I can only aspire to be a net zero dad. I'm starting out on my journey. So if you, if anyone listening thinks that they are a net zero dad, please say in the comments, I'm a net zero dad because we need, we need more of them. Okay, we're coming towards the end of this. And you described that you're at the bottom of the valley of despair, looking up at the slope of enlightenment on that graph and you can see the rays of hope. There have been some incredibly positive conversations with the powers that be, with various policymakers, politicians, et cetera. What are you looking forward to over the next 12 months?
A
Well, I'm looking forward to seeing some of the tangible changes of the work we've been doing to help policymakers understand the routes to decarbonizing heating. So there's a big moment for us is the warm homes plan. So the government has been working on sort of all encompassing their plan and strategy for how they're going to decarbonize our homes and keep them warm. That is sort of, unfortunately, it's been slipping a little bit. It was, I think it was originally due to come out in the spring and it's now going to be in the, probably in the late summer. After the spending review. But that really is going to be a, you know, hopefully a watershed moment for us and the industry and give real clarity as to the seriousness of this government around decarbonization, the continued commitment to doing it in spite of some of the other economic challenges and hopefully, hopefully some subsidy for batteries. So we, you know, we, we don't, obviously we don't know anything for sure. We're just, we're just doing what, we're just doing what we do. You know, we continue to heat homes. We are providing the government with, with lots of data. There's a, there's a trial that's being run by the Energy Systems Catapult at the moment that's supporting any government decisions. So that's going to be a really big moment for us. And you know, off the back of that we're ready to go and there's loads of. We've got so much interest and demand for the product. I think it's going to be a good year for heat batteries.
B
Well, I think that is absolutely the perfect note to end on. I'm going to make sure that I link to a couple of things that you mentioned there, not least the energy Systems Catapult. We've had the privilege of interviewing someone from the Energy Systems Catapult in the past and they're doing incredible things. We'll also link of course to the various TEPEO episodes that we've done as well because they're pretty fab. But thank you so much for giving up your Friday morning and for chatting to us today.
A
Really nice speak to you. Thanks.
B
Thank you so much to Johan for joining us for this particular conversation. I think it's absolutely fascinating that you could start a business based on a piece of technology and somehow it has to evolve and you have to educate policymakers, politicians and your consumers as well in order to ensure it's success. Really, really fascinating. Thank you so much to Andy from our team who will be editing this particular episode. Thank you to you for listening as ever. Before you go, if you could do us the teeny tiny favour of like commenting, subscribing, sharing with a friend or all of the above, it is so appreciated. We love sharing the latest and greatest across the clean energy and technology world and we would love to continue doing so and your support is always hugely appreciated. But that's it, that's all we have time for. If you have been. Thank you for listening.
Podcast Summary: The Fully Charged Podcast
Episode: Beyond Heat Pumps: What’s the Real Recipe for Zero Carbon Heating?
Release Date: April 7, 2025
Host: The Fully Charged Show (Robert Llewellyn)
Guest: Johan du Plessis, Founder and CEO of TEPEO
In this episode of The Fully Charged Podcast, host Robert Llewellyn welcomes Johan du Plessis, the founder and CEO of TEPEO. The discussion centers around TEPEO's innovative product, the Zeb—a zero emission boiler designed as an alternative to traditional heat pumps. While the Zeb itself is a remarkable product, the episode delves deeper into the broader challenges and insights associated with being a climate tech founder in the UK.
Johan du Plessis introduces TEPEO as a climate tech scale-up established seven years ago in the UK. The company's flagship product, the Zeb, is described as a smart heat battery. Unlike conventional chemical batteries, the Zeb stores energy directly as heat, making it a direct replacement for existing fossil fuel boilers.
Johan [02:01]: "We've been using [our slogan] for years... at the core of what we're trying to do is help people to stop burning fossil fuels to heat their homes."
The Zeb operates by charging with electricity during off-peak rates—when electricity is cheaper—and then releasing the stored heat when needed. This system not only promotes energy efficiency but also reduces reliance on gas or oil for heating.
While acknowledging the effectiveness of heat pumps, Johan emphasizes that heat pumps may not be suitable for every home due to space constraints or the need for extensive upgrades.
Johan [04:16]: "Heat pumps are brilliant, but we can't put all our eggs in one basket."
The Zeb is portrayed as a plug-and-play solution, allowing homeowners to replace their gas boilers seamlessly without significant alterations to their homes. This ease of installation makes the Zeb an attractive alternative for those unable to accommodate heat pumps.
A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the policy and regulatory challenges faced by TEPEO. Johan highlights the difficulty in securing investment due to the pace of governmental change in heat decarbonization initiatives.
Johan [06:16]: "We've had a little bit of a pause in terms of the way we're going to grow the business... but we're absolutely still committed to the mission."
He explains that the UK government's current subsidy framework, which predominantly favors heat pumps, excludes many potential customers whose homes aren't suited for such installations. This creates a market skew that inadvertently supports the continuation of gas boilers over alternative solutions like the Zeb.
Johan [10:00]: "We should rebalance it properly... to have a more level playing field with heat pumps so that we can compete."
Johan advocates for a broader, technology-agnostic approach to subsidies, allowing various zero-carbon heating solutions to thrive based on their suitability and efficiency.
The Zeb offers significant cost savings compared to gas boilers, especially with recent changes in the UK energy market where the gas price cap has surpassed off-peak electricity rates.
Johan [12:20]: "You could save money on gas... many of our customers do save money versus a gas boiler, which is a really great place to be."
Johan also mentions that the efficiency of the Zeb, combined with its ability to store energy, makes it more cost-effective, particularly for smaller, well-insulated homes.
Transitioning from product discussions, Johan shares his evolving role as a founder, which now heavily involves policy advocacy and regulatory work—a significant shift from his initial focus on engineering and product development.
Johan [24:07]: "I often say you do need to have an element of enforced or true real naivety when you start a business... you're spending at least a third of my time now on policy and regulatory work."
He underscores the importance of delegation and building a strong team, allowing him to focus on strategic challenges rather than getting bogged down in technical details.
Looking ahead, Johan is optimistic about upcoming policy changes, particularly the Warm Homes Plan, which he anticipates will provide much-needed clarity and support for diverse zero-carbon heating technologies.
Johan [32:13]: "There's a big moment for us is the warm homes plan... we have lots of data... so that's going to be a really big moment for us."
He expects that these developments will accelerate the adoption of products like the Zeb, driving the market towards more sustainable heating solutions.
Johan offers valuable advice to aspiring founders, emphasizing the necessity of wearing multiple hats and prioritizing tasks that drive the most value for the business. He highlights the importance of being adaptable and focusing on the big picture while leveraging a strong team to manage other responsibilities.
Johan [26:56]: "You have to be all over the most important things that are ultimately and really try and understand what really is going to drive value and the change that you're really after."
He also reflects on the challenges of maintaining a balance between technical problem-solving and strategic advocacy, advising founders to recognize their weaknesses and delegate accordingly.
This episode provides an insightful exploration into the innovative solutions like TEPEO's Zeb that aim to revolutionize zero-carbon heating. Johan du Plessis sheds light on the complex interplay between technology, policy, and market dynamics, offering a candid look at the challenges and triumphs of leading a climate tech company. Listeners gain a deeper understanding of the necessity for diverse solutions in achieving sustainable heating and the critical role of policy advocacy in driving meaningful change.
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