Online energy retailer Click Energy has launched an electricity plan targeting electric vehicle owners, and offering them lower electricity rates or – for EV owners with solar – a higher feed-in tariff.
Click Energy – which operates completely online and services more than 135,000 customers in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia – said on Thursday it had launched the plan to offer electric vehicle drivers “convenience and great value” to better meet their needs.
The plan, called Click EV, has been launched alongside a “charge calculator” – pictured below – which allows customers to check the cost of charging their electric vehicle in their distributor zone.
Click says customers – at this stage it is available only to customers in Victoria and New South Wales – can vary the quote based on the make and model of their car, and the distance they regularly drive.
The plan, which Click claims is Australia’s first to be dedicated to EV owners, follows the announcement of AGL Energy’s $1 a day “all you can eat” electric vehicle charging deal, an offer the gentailer plans to launch in November.
The AGL product – announced by CEO Andy Vesey at the Australian Energy Week 2016 conference in Melbourne in June – signalled yet another push by the big utilities to engage with the new technologies that threaten to disrupt their traditional business models in coming years.
A new point of sale for retailers, electric vehicles are a good news story for electricity generators, too, as a new driver of demand in a market battling consistent decline.
According to Click, its EV power plan is unique in Australia because it doesn’t single out car charging for the special rates, but lowers them outright for the entire household for all of its energy consumption. Customers with solar meters will also be entitled to an additional retailer-funded feed-in tariff, Click said.
“We have been following the growth of electric vehicle adoption in Australia with great interest and have felt that as these customers have different needs from our other customers,” said Click Energy CEO Dominic Drenen.
“They deserve their own energy plan structure.”
