AGL Energy : initiatives to help drive electric vehicles uptake

Monday, 22 May 2017

AGL Energy (AGL) today announced initiatives to help drive the uptake of electric vehicles in Australia at the launch of the Electric Vehicle (EV) Council at Parliament House in Canberra.

AGL Managing Director & CEO Andy Vesey said AGL will commit to purchase 36 Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) to help meet our goal of 10 percent of our business car fleet being electric by mid-2018.

'We are committed to leading the development of distributed energy technologies and are on our way to operating the largest fleet of plug-in vehicles of any Australian business.

'We encourage Australian governments and companies to meet or better our EV uptake commitment. If other Australian fleet operators, including government, adopted a 10 percent target it would result in more than 43,000 EV sales per year and reduce up to 85,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually. *

'We also advocate for market and policy reform to help overcome key barriers to encourage people to buy EVs in Australia and enhance their ownership experience. And we recognise the commitment and coordination required across Australia's emerging EV market to ensure this is achieved.

'We look forward to working with the EV Council, the Federal government and industry partners including Mitsubishi Australia to enhance that end goal,' said Mr Vesey.

AGL also announced today a new program for AGL employees which offers a tailored novated leasing bundle including the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, AGL Electric Car Plan and home charging solution.

'By partnering with car manufacturers we can harness insights and offer practical solutions to consumers through new products and services they value,' added Mr Vesey.

Last year, AGL introduced the Electric Car Plan which includes $1 a day unlimited home charging of electric vehicles to AGL customers, providing them certainty on the low costs of EV operation. The plan also provides zero emissions through carbon offsets from AGL's Future Forests program.

* calculation based on data from FCAI/VFACTS 2016, ABS 2015, Aust Govt 2017; assumes EVs are powered by renewables/zero emissions

About AGL
AGL is one of Australia's leading integrated energy companies. It is taking action to responsibly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions while providing secure and affordable energy to its customers. Drawing on 180 years of experience, AGL serves its customers throughout eastern Australia with meeting their energy requirements, including gas, electricity, solar PV and related products and services. AGL has a diverse power generation portfolio including base, peaking and intermediate generation plants, spread across traditional thermal generation as well as renewable sources including hydro, wind, solar, landfill gas and biomass.