Electricity customers across the national grid would pay about 70 per cent of the cost of new public EV chargers built by the poles-and-wires networks, whether or not they own an electric car, under a draft rule the Australian Energy Market Commission published on Thursday.
The AEMC puts the cost at about $1 a year on a typical household bill for five years. Commonwealth modelling cited in the draft determination estimates the total recovered from consumers at about $97.2 million: $85.4 million in capital costs and $11.8 million in operating costs.
The rule exists to serve the Commonwealth's $40 million Accelerating EV Charging Program, and the energy department asked for it. Under the program, the Commonwealth pays about 30 per cent of eligible costs for around 14,000 chargers in regional blackspots and on kerbsides where residents have no off-street parking. The draft rule caps the Commonwealth's grant funding at $33.2 million. Participating networks recover the balance from their customers.
The mechanism is the story. The AEMC would classify the program's work as a "standard control service", the regulated category that lets a network recover costs through the network charges on every bill. That classification also switches off the ring-fencing rules that normally keep monopoly networks out of competitive markets such as charging. Operating costs for the first five years would be added to each network's regulated asset base, the pool of assets on which networks earn a regulated return. The Australian Energy Regulator would still need to approve the recovery.
The Commission concedes it does not know the final bill. It "is not possible at this time to quantify with precision the costs that consumers will bear", the draft determination says, because the cost depends on which networks win the Commonwealth's tenders. The $1 figure is described as "a valuable approximation".
The determination also records the objection. "A range of stakeholders were opposed to these arrangements on equity grounds. Many considered that only EV users should fund the infrastructure." The same passage records the alternative those stakeholders put: that the chargers "should be wholly funded by governments through taxation".
AEMC chair Anna Collyer said emissions reduction was the largest single factor in the decision. "Having weighed all factors, the Commission is satisfied the program's likely benefits outweigh its costs to consumers, given its targeted and time-limited design," she said. The Commonwealth's request estimated $809 million in benefits.
The private charging industry is not persuaded. "The public-facing EV charging infrastructure in this country is virtually entirely competitively owned," Ross De Rango, director of Vehicle Charging Solutions Australia, told the ABC. "There is no need for public charging infrastructure to be owned by monopolies where it can be owned by competitive interests instead."
Stewart Joyce, chief executive of the National Electrical and Communications Association, went further. "Putting up electricity bills to pay for EV chargers shows staggering contempt for consumers battling in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis," he said.
The draft does contain limits. In metropolitan areas, private charge point operators get first right of refusal on each identified kerbside site, and a network installs an AC charger only where no operator takes the site up. In regional blackspots, networks bid in a competitive tender and the winner installs a DC fast charger. The program is due to end on 30 June 2029.
The larger question sits in a separate queue. Energy Networks Australia has asked for kerbside charging to become a regulated network service generally, and Nexa Advisory has asked for tighter competition and ring-fencing protections. Both requests are being considered in the AEMC's Electricity Network Regulation Review. Ausgrid already holds a five-year ring-fencing waiver from the AER, granted in March 2025, for up to 1,000 pole-mounted chargers.
Submissions on the draft rule close on 5 November, and the AEMC expects to make a final determination by the end of the year.
