Author: Brady Souden, Director, Econ Energy
Every home EV charger installed today can produce EV charger revenue between $900 and $4,000 per year. Yet not a single major Australian lender counts that EV charger revenue when assessing a loan.
That disconnect sits at the heart of a growing financial blind spot. As an electrician who has installed thousands of energy systems across Canberra and the surrounding region, I see this gap widen with every new charger we wire in. The technology has moved well beyond plugging in a car overnight. Meanwhile, the lending industry still treats these installations like garden taps.
EV Charger Revenue Starts With Smart Charging
The simplest form of EV charger revenue comes from smart tariff arbitrage. Homeowners who pair a connected charger with a wholesale electricity retailer like Amber Electric can charge their vehicle for as little as 5c/kWh. Compare that to the 25-45c/kWh most Australians pay on standard retail plans.
In practical terms, that translates to roughly $0.01 per kilometre instead of $0.20 per kilometre for petrol. For a typical 12,000 km driver, the savings land around AU$2,000 per year. Even better, the top 10% of Amber’s EV customers pay nothing at all by exploiting negative wholesale prices during peak solar generation.
This pattern holds internationally too. Over in the UK, Octopus Energy’s Intelligent Octopus Go tariff delivers off-peak rates of 5.49p/kWh from April 2026. That saves the average driver roughly £400-600 annually. More than 150,000 EVs now participate in the program.
What amplifies the EV charger revenue opportunity in Australia is the NEM’s extreme price volatility. The wholesale price gap between daily highs and lows surged from $32 in 2020 to $244 by 2022. Record numbers of negative-price intervals hit during 2024 as renewables flooded the daytime market. Then evening peaks regularly spike above $200-300/MWh. That duck curve creates the arbitrage window that smart chargers exploit.
Bidirectional Charging Multiplies the Opportunity
Smart charging saves money. However, bidirectional charging turns the car into an active revenue source.
A typical EV carries 60-100 kWh of battery storage. By comparison, a Tesla Powerwall 3 holds just 13.5 kWh and costs around AU$16,000 installed. So a bidirectional charger costing AU$6,000-10,000 unlocks four to seven times more storage capacity at a fraction of the price.
The maths for Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) EV charger revenue works simply. On a time-of-use tariff with a spread of roughly $0.30/kWh between off-peak and peak, discharging 10 kWh daily during peak hours saves $3.00 per day. Over a year, that totals approximately AU$900. When the owner charges from rooftop solar where the effective purchase price approaches zero, the savings climb even further.
A major University of Michigan study published in Nature Energy confirmed that V2H slashes 40-90% off lifetime EV charging costs. In parts of Texas and California, V2H savings exceeded total charging costs. The EV charger revenue generated through the car’s battery brought the household electricity bill below what it was before the vehicle arrived.
As these sustainable finance innovations gain traction globally, the financial infrastructure still lags far behind the technology.
V2G Pilots Are Producing Real Numbers
Vehicle-to-Grid programs push EV charger revenue beyond the household and into grid services where the figures get considerably larger.
The most significant Australian data comes from the REVS project in Canberra. This ARENA-funded trial deployed 51 Nissan LEAFs with bidirectional chargers across 11 ACT Government buildings. It became the world’s first fleet-scale V2G trial supplying Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) to a national electricity market. The final report modelled conservative revenue of approximately $400 per vehicle per year, with theoretical figures reaching $12,000 per vehicle per year for regulation FCAS in NSW.
Three major V2G trials launched across Australia during 2025. AGL began testing with Hyundai, Kia, BYD, and Zeekr EVs across four states. Origin Energy launched Australia’s first commercial V2G subscription, bundling a BYD Atto 3, V2G charger, and smart tariff for under $800 per month. Amber Electric also kicked off an $8.4 million ARENA-backed residential V2G program across 50 homes.
International results reinforce the case. The University of Delaware’s fleet of 15 Nissan LEAFs has earned $2,500-5,000 per vehicle per year through PJM frequency regulation since 2013. The UK’s Octopus Power Pack V2G tariff offers participants free EV charging in exchange for V2G access. Meanwhile, Australia’s emerging fintech and blockchain infrastructure could eventually help verify and trade this distributed energy revenue at scale.
Why Lenders Still See a Dumb Appliance
Despite all this data, the lending industry’s treatment of EV charger revenue remains disconnected from reality.
No Australian lender recognises smart charging savings, V2H arbitrage, or V2G grid services in loan serviceability assessments. No formal property valuation methodology exists for EV chargers in Australia or internationally. And no peer-reviewed study has isolated EV charger contributions to property value.
The contrast with solar panels tells the story. The landmark Cotality/CBA “Watt’s it Worth” study analysing over 6 million Australian homes confirmed solar panels command a 2.7% price premium averaging $23,100 per home. Solar panels sit comfortably inside every major green finance product. EV chargers? They rely on unverified installer marketing claims.
Banks like Westpac through the CEFC-backed Sustainable Upgrades Home Loan and CBA through Brighte now list EV chargers as eligible items. Yet in each case, the charger’s expected EV charger revenue plays zero role in the assessment. The borrower’s capacity to repay looks identical whether they install a bidirectional charger or a decorative water feature.
Even solar feed-in tariff income and VPP battery revenue remain invisible to mortgage assessors. Tesla paid Powerwall owners $9.9 million through Australian virtual power plants in 2024 alone. That income still does not appear in serviceability calculations. As AI-driven financial tools reshape risk assessment across the industry, energy asset income remains conspicuously absent from the models.
The Gap Won’t Last Forever
The UK’s Green Finance Institute has already developed Utilisation Linked Finance for EV chargers, where loan payments only begin once the chargepoints generate revenue. That model directly acknowledges EV charger revenue as a financeable asset class.
It took solar panels roughly 15 years to gain formal recognition in property appraisals and lending products. The EV charger revenue recognition timeline could compress thanks to the lessons solar taught us, existing green finance infrastructure, and rapidly accumulating V2G data. Still, formal lending recognition likely sits 5-10 years away at minimum.
For homeowners installing smart or bidirectional chargers right now, the reality is straightforward. The revenue is there. The lending system just has not caught up yet. And for forward-thinking fintechs willing to build the valuation frameworks, there is a substantial first-mover opportunity hiding in Australian driveways.
Brady Souden is the Director of Econ Energy, a family-owned Canberra solar, battery, and EV charger installation business with over 6,000 solar installs and 15+ years of electrical experience.