AGL Energy says it is capturing a “disproportionate share” of Australia’s maturing electric vehicle market, with the evolution of its retail EV plans “materially outpacing” growth in the number of EVs on the road in the last nine months.
In a presentation on its half-year results for the 2025 financial year released this week, AGL says it currently has 26,000 EV Energy plan customers on its books, 38 per cent of which were new to AGL when they signed up.
The growing uptake of EVs in Australia has undoubtedly been a boon for AGL, not least for its contribution to the growth in native demand the gentailer this week reported “for the first time in six years.”
The real win, however, lies in when these EV plan customers use their electricity, which according to AGL is increasingly shifting to overnight to take advantage of discounted prices.
AGL said on Wednesday that its EV Night Saver Plan, which offers 8c/kWh EV charging between 12 and 6am, has seen up to 44% of customer’s daily load shifted to the overnight window.
This is ideal for AGL, creating new off-peak demand for its always-on coal power assets, which still by far dominate the company’s generation mix.
“There is a significant opportunity to orchestrate the ever-increasing flexible load of EV batteries – encouraging off-peak charging and thereby shifting load to the overnight period through pricing signals, optimising both pricing and portfolio outcomes for AGL and our customers,” AGL CEO Damien Nicks said on Wednesday.
“Our EV Night Saver Plan has shown customers consuming four times the load in the overnight window compared to a standard retail customer without an EV.
“We also recognise the major growth opportunities of adjacent products and services such as EV subscriptions, fleet
transitioning and public charging,” Nicks said.
“Crucially, we have a compelling suite of EV plans, propositions and partnerships which will be the foundation of continued expected growth.”
Nicks says AGL has also expanded the EVControl program it offers through its majority-owned joint venture partner Ovo Energy to include Mini, BMW and Tesla customers.
Similar to the Night Saver Plan, the EVControl program offers 8c/kWh EV charging from midnight to 6am, but adds a daytime window for charging for free – 0c/kWh – between 11am and 2pm, to tap into the midday solar peak.
AGL also noted in its results presentation that its recently launched EV curb side public charging offer, in partnership with Plus ES, has seen 1,750 charging sessions in the first month alone – although that could be a lot to do with the fact that charging was free up until the end of January.
“Overall, we are well positioned to meet our customer’s needs, drive innovation and grow in this important and rapidly evolving market,” Nicks said.
Little was said about vehicle-to-grid in the various results packages, and what part V2G might play in the big three gentailer’s business, except to say that AGL is “progressing towards vehicle to grid readiness.”
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.