AGL Energy is showing signs of resurrecting a new version of its mothballed electric vehicle charging plan, through an email campaign asking its retail electricity customers for registrations of interest in a “great new deal.”
The email pitches a “no lock-in contract” that gives electric vehicle-driving AGL customers annual bonus credits of up to $300 – or a $25 credit to their monthly bill.
The deal also offers the “flexibility to charge your EV at home whenever you like, 24/7,” and a free 100 per cent carbon offset via AGL Future Forests (usually worth $52 per annum).
The proposed new deal follows the completion of the company’s pilot Electric Car Plan, which offered $1 “all-you-can-eat” EV charging, under the stewardship of former CEO Andy Vesey.
Vesey – who unveiled the deal at the All Energy Australia conference in June 2016 – said at the time that it effectively provided customers with an EV and a digital meter access to “a home charging station,” 24 hours a day for $1, with the emissions fully offset.
“If you’re an AGL customer, or become one, then we will provide charging for electric vehicles, $1 a day, all you can eat,” Vesey told the conference at the end of his keynote address.
“So for a dollar a day if you have an electric car and you have an AGL smart meter… you can get energy for that car, as much as you want, 24 hours a day, for a dollar.”
Three years and a new chief executive later, AGL has appears to have decided to go back to the drawing board on EV charging, rather than extend Vesey’s all-you-can-eat trial.
“We learnt a lot about the early adopters who have taken the leap to drive electric mobility here in Australia,” the company says on its EV web page (you can register your interest in the coming EV plan there, too).
“We now better understand our EV customers’ needs and are currently working on a new version of the Electric Car Plan that will be released to market in early 2019.”
Early 2019 is obviously out, but the emails suggest momentum is gathering. Watch this space.
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and deputy editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.