Click introduces EV energy plan

ENERGY provider Click Energy has announced a dedicated electric vehicle billing plan that is the first of its kind to be offered in Australia.

Click Energy CEO Dominic Drenen said the new plan, which is initially available in Victoria and New South Wales, was a result of increased interest in electrified vehicles in Australia.

“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, they deserve their own energy plan structure – one which is designed to provide convenience and great value,” he said.

The company said in a release that the plan is unique as it does not single out the car, meaning customers will not require a dedicated circuit to access the EV rates, and the entire household can benefit from the rates, not just when a vehicle is being charged.

There is no conditional discounting as there is with other residential energy plans, with Click saying that it has “simply lowered the usage rates outright for these customers”.

It added that customers with solar meters would also be entitled to an additional retailer-funded feed-in tariff.

EV and PHEV owners can check an online calculator, which advises the estimated daily cost to charge their vehicle.

Click Energy includes all of the currently available EVs and plug-ins on sale in Australia in the calculator, including Tesla’s full line-up, BMW’s iPerformance models, the Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi’s Outlander PHEV and i-MiEV, Audi A3 e-tron, Volvo XC90 T8 and the Holden Volt.

Charging a BMW 330e sedan with Click Energy in Melbourne’s inner north would cost approximately 0.46 cents per day, a Leaf is 0.66c, the Model S 70D is 0.71c and the Outlander is 0.51c. The different rates are dictated by the capacity of each respective battery.

Australia has been slow to embrace EVs and PHEVs compared with European countries as well as parts of the United States, particularly California, due to minimal charging infrastructure as well as a complete absence of incentives from federal or state governments.

A number of local governments offer charging stations at council offices or town halls.

So far this year, 169 electric or plug-in electric vehicles have found homes in Australia. This is a massive 69 per cent dip compared with the first seven months of 2015 when 543 had been sold.

Tesla does not reports its sales to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries so its figures are not included in the tally.

Click is a 100 per cent online energy company that has been operating since 2006 with more than 135,000 customers in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia.