AMPCHARGE TAKES AMPOL INTO ELECTRICITY

Petrol and diesel supplier Ampol has made its entry into electricity supply, opening its first AmpCharge electric vehicle charging site in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Alexandria, with a pilot offer to household customers in the wings.

Chief executive Matt Halliday said Ampol had made clear it was looking to test an offer in retail electricity and had now secured its energy retailing licence.

“We’re working through the offer that we will test with a small group of employees in the first instance to test and learn … and then we’ll look at how we take it forward, acknowledging the overall retail electricity space. Given where wholesale markets are at the moment, it is certainly a pretty challenging context,” Mr Halliday said.

The Alexandria AmpCharge site, at the Ampol Woolworths MetroGo site, is the first of 120 electric vehicle fast-charging sites to be delivered at Ampol forecourts across Australia by December 2023.

It is part of an initial rollout of five pilot sites at Ampol service stations, with fast-charging infrastructure also to be installed at sites in the Brisbane suburb of Carseldine, Northmead in Greater Western Sydney, Altona North south-west of Melbourne and in the Perth suburb of Belmont over the coming month.

Mr Halliday said the first AmpCharge site also represents the first stage of Ampol’s shift to position itself as a provider of electricity for customers, to be supplied at home or in places such as shopping centres as well as on traditional service station sites.

Growing demand for lower-emission products

The plan to move into electricity supply was flagged by the former Caltex Australia last May as part of the company’s decarbonisation strategy, which also includes opportunities in hydrogen, gas, biofuels and emissions reductions.

Ampol has committed to spending $100 million on future energy sources for customers as it shifts its portfolio to suit growing demand for lower-emission products.

Each site will be capable of delivering charge to an electric vehicle at up to 150kw and have the capacity to charge at least two vehicles concurrently. They will be powered by solar panels and solar battery storage systems, with excess energy from the EV chargers offset by large-scale renewable energy certificates.

The move comes amid lagging uptake of electric vehicles in Australia compared to other advanced economies, with only 2 per cent of new car sales last year being electric.

A lack of incentives to purchase EVs and the absence of vehicle emissions standards have contributed to a poor choice of models on the market in Australia, and high costs.

The Electric Vehicle Council warned on Monday that Australia would languish at the end of the queue for the best and most affordable EVs unless it ignores the car industry lobby and introduces stricter fuel efficiency standards in line with those in Europe or the US.

Mr Halliday said tougher targets for fuel efficiency would drive up the costs of vehicles but could be required to improve access to EVs.

“Further emissions-related targets will push up the cost of vehicles in Australia but may well be the pathway to open up more access to EVs,” he told The Australian Financial Review.

“So I think there’s a cost-of-living objective that needs to be weighed up against EV model availability.”

He said Ampol believed the availability of EV models would increase in any case in response to customer demand and as vehicle producers sought to establish a foothold in the growing market in Australia.

However, supply chain constraints and the availability of cars were a problem for sales at the moment.

“Our view remains that price parity overall is going to be achieved before the end of this decade, and that new economic equation is going to drive the uptake,” Mr Halliday said.

Brent Merrick, head of Ampol’s international and new business, said Ampol planned to establish the leading EV charging network in Australia by 2030.