Evoenergy, which owns and operates gas and electricity distribution across the territory, has surveyed EV owners and those intending to purchase an EV in the next three years to help better understand charging behaviour and EV owners' future willingness to adapt recharging behaviour based on electricity prices.

Electric vehicle ownership is booming in the ACT, with more per capita sales of Chinese-made Tesla cars than any other state or territory.

As thousands more EVs are connected to the territory's network in the next 18 months, together with an expansion of the public recharging network and the huge take-up of the Sustainable Household Scheme subsidy program, Evoenergy says it must adapt by delivering "a smarter, flexible and secure energy system which can facilitate uptake at maximum pace".

And that change will incur additional costs. The operator is already projecting that its expenditure from July 2024 will be 9 per cent higher than it is now, and its capital expenditure 16 per cent higher. All these costs must be onpassed to customers although it will be the retailers who "shape" how this occurs.

The company will be "designing tariffs that are appropriate for changing use of the network while sending price signals that promote efficient use of the network for EV charging to reduce the impact on the network".

Evoenergy's future network plan, being drafted now ready for introduction in mid-2024, has been directly effected by major ACT government policy levers such as the household subsidy scheme.

Evoenergy charges energy retailers to transport electricity through its network, with those retailers passing this cost to householders via quarterly or monthly electricity bills.

The next five-year plan will reshape its tariff structure, which is due to be delivered to the Australian Energy Regulator in January 2023.

The fast take-up of rooftop solar in Canberra - with the equivalent of the Royalla solar farm installed on Canberra houses in the past 18 months - has fundamentally changed Evoenergy's future operating plans.

It is shifting away from its traditional role of being a Distributed Network Service Provider (DSNP) which basically pushes power out to customers, to one which is "two-way" network, both distributing power, accepting it from customers, and storing it in facilities such as community batteries.

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How much customers earn from generating power from their home or business by way of feed-in tariffs is one of the great future unknowns, given Evoenergy has its own rising network costs to cover.

"The extent that consumers generate and store energy (both for their own use and export) will have a major impact on the topology and dynamic control of network forecasts and we will continue to factor these changes into our long-term network planning," the company stated.

What the distributor's EV survey found was that owners would take up the concept of a low off-peak charge offered during the middle of the day (11am and 3pm).

They were also open to the idea of "trickle charging" their EV overnight to save money on the network component of their electricity bills.

EV owners surveyed said they generally avoid the 7am-9am peak power demand period, with their current EV recharging fairly evenly spread across the the day.

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