AGL’s EV Tariff: Cheap Charging But A Caveat For Home Batteries

In good news for EV owners that must charge overnight, AGL has decided to support customer EV charging with new nighttime tariffs.

Three years of trials demonstrated a customer preference for EV charging at night, so the tariff package offers prices below AGL’s current off-peak price for EV charging: 8c/kWh (~1.3c per km) between midnight and 6am.

Other EV-friendly plans available include:

originAGL’s offer includes a limited-time 5c/kWh discount at BP Pulse rapid chargers for NSW customers, with offers to be made in other states “shortly”.

The company’s brief media release says the Night Saver Energy Plan also gives customers a discounted rate for daytime charging, “recognising the importance of having a fully charged car to help alleviate range anxiety.”

AGL Chief Customer Officer Jo Egan said the company wants to offer products and services that encourage the electrification of transport:

“We are evolving our products and services to ensure they are flexible, simple and suit our customers’ lifestyle. We know our customers charge while they sleep and we have remodelled our EV energy plan to give them an affordable price to charge at the most convenient time.”

Other AGL EV initiatives include its rather pricey EV subscription service and its partnership with software platform Kaluza to roll out demand response software for EV charging and other household loads.

Be Careful If You Own A Home Battery

From Finn: If you have a home battery and charge your EV overnight for 6-8c per kWh, it makes no economic sense to empty your home battery into your car, which will be the default behaviour for most energy storage systems on the Australian market. You should save the energy for the morning peak.

If you have a Tesla Powerwall, its software is smart enough to work this out itself, but you need to enter the tariff details into your Tesla app and engage ‘Time-Based Control’².

If you have any other home battery, ask your installer what your options are for configuring it to not discharge into your car. There is a re-wiring trick to achieve this that SQ’s Anthony will cover soon.

Original Source: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/agl-ev-charging-tariff/