Telstra aims to leverage in-home presence with electricity offer

Telstra can offer a phone and internet service, so why not electricity? Chief Andy Penn says the telco is working on a renewable energy offer.

Telstra chief Andy Penn says the telco giant will bring a fresh set of eyes, and a trusted brand that’s already in people’s homes, to the energy market as it explores launching an electricity offer.

Telstra, one of the nation’s biggest electricity users, is assessing plans to sell renewable electricity to customers.

The telco giant has underwritten projects that generate enough renewable energy to power about 100,000 homes.

That will increase as it works to ensure all of its electricity consumption comes from renewable sources by 2025.

Telstra is exploring selling renewable energy plans to its customers.

The Melbourne-based company has deployed artificial intelligence and smart devices to manage its own energy usage in recent years, as well as to secure renewable energy at the best prices.

Mr Penn said it would leverage these skills and resources as it explored launching a retail electricity brand. He said that being an outsider to the sector was a key advantage. “We often face challenges in being the largest player in telecommunications — there are organisations who can come in at times and compete with us on the margin and because of our incumbency it can make it much harder for us,” he said.

“Looking at some of the big energy players, they have that same sort of dynamic whereas we are coming in new and fresh.

“We don’t have any constraints or incumbency. We can offer really simple solutions, we can leverage a lot of our existing infrastructure and services around marketing and we’ve got a very trusted brand already in the home.

“One of the opportunities we have is really leveraging our existing in-home presence.”

The push into energy is part of Telstra’s connected-home strategy in which more devices are connected and managed via the internet.

Telstra chief Andy Penn working from home in times of COVID-19. Picture: Aaron Francis

Telstra’s services have been in hot demand this year because the coronavirus pandemic has led to a surge in working remotely.

Mr Penn said COVID-19 had transformed ideas about how and where people work.

“We’ve had more digital adoption in the past six months than the previous five years — what that says is that technology was not the constraint,” he said.

“There is a real opportunity to accelerate the digital economy and for that to be a vehicle for a faster and stronger economic recovery. There needs to be a lot of focus on how we support the digital economy from here on.”

The shift into energy was outlined at an investor day.

Telstra plans to undertake a major restructure, splitting itself into three divisions in a shake-up which better positions it to be able buy the National Broadband Network.

The three divisions include InfraCo Fixed, which will house Telstra’s fixed-line assets, InfraCo Towers, which will own and manage mobile phone towers, and ServeCo will own the spectrum assets.

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