How EV charging rollout could send everyone’s bills higher – and how to stop it

As electric vehicle adoption surges, a divide is emerging over who gets to build and run the chargers needed to keep NSW on the road.

A new report raises repeated warnings about what could happen if the wrong choice is made, including higher power bills for everyone – not just EV owners. 

The NSW Legislative Assembly Committee on Transport and Infrastructure heard from dozens of witnesses across five separate hearings as it sought to answer that question and many others about EV infrastructure.

Its final report released on Thursday was full of warnings that letting the big power providers – Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy and Essential Energy – lead the rollout would lead to another monopoly, harming drivers and competitors.

The RACQ warned it would “ultimately shift costs to all energy consumers, regardless of their EV ownership status”, an argument echoed by charger company EVSE.

“Allowing monopoly suppliers to become dominant competitors would simply distort the market, stifle innovation, raise electricity bills and deter investment because no-one wants to invest when your supplier is also your competitor,” Brendan Wheeler, chief executive of charger company EVSE, told the committee.

Similar concerns have been aired in submissions to the Australian Energy Market Commission regarding a national charger rollout program.

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The big power providers are currently blocked from leading the rollout by the Australian Energy Regulator’s ring-fencing guideline, which separates regulated business activities – such as running a power network – from competitive ones. 

But Essential Energy applied in June for a waiver that would allow it to build 300 kerbside EV chargers in regional NSW under a trial partly funded by a federal government grant.

The government-owned company warned there was a “risk of regional communities being left behind in the energy transition” and the trial would address “a persistent gap in regional and thin markets, where public EV charging infrastructure has not been delivered at scale”.

The report detailed multiple problems with trying to get EV chargers into rural and remote areas where they might not be as profitable as in big cities.

It even heard from people concerned some towns were losing out on tourism due to a lack of charging infrastructure, along with the more obvious concerns about residents struggling to charge their vehicles.

Ausgrid and Essential argued the lack of chargers was a failure of the competitive market and put themselves forward as potential solutions to the issue.

The report recommended the state government develop a process to work with big energy providers to install EV chargers in regional areas “as a provider of last resort”.

But it stressed the “strong support” among stakeholders for the current guidelines broadly keeping the big power providers out of the market.

It also urged the government to watch the outcome of the Essential waiver application and to require an extra layer of approvals for federal funding to install EV charges, “where funding is at odds with existing state legislation”.

The report also made a series of recommendations aimed at helping ensure people living in apartments had access to charging, as well as other policy changes to increase availability of charging and even vehicle maintenance in regional areas.