electric-rates-agl’s diary

AGL is one of the most well known energy retailers in Australia. But unlike other companies, it’s no spring chicken. You can trace AGL’s roots back two hundred years, to the Australian Gas Light Company, a company that, as its name suggests, was the first to retail gas in Australia. Since then the company has expanded, massively. After a while they reduced the name to an initialism, and went by simply AGL Energy. Today they still retail gas, but they’ve also got involved in both retail electricity and solar energy. Keen to learn a bit more about the oldest energy company? Keep reading below.

The Australian Gas Light Company

Cast you mind back nearly two hundred years to colonial Australia. You’re probably picturing Ned Kelly, but there were other things going on too. For one there was the development of Australia’s energy infrastructure and one of the key components of that was the rise of the Australian Gas Light Company. In 1837 a royal charter was granted to the company, putting them in charge of lighting the streets of Sydney. It wasn’t until four years later that the lights were actually turned on however. On the 24th of May 1841 the city of Sydney honoured then-Queen Victoria by lighting up the city.

For many years following that AGL stuck to the town gas game, providing little else in terms of service. However that all changed in 1976, nearly 150 years after the company was founded. It was all because of the construction of a massive pipeline from Moomba to Sydney. The construction of this pipeline was all the impetus AGL to switch from town gas to natural gas. It wasn’t the only change they made, but the end of the 20th century they’d snapped up a share in a power station and had begun generating their own power.

Ditching the details and becoming AGL

Here’s a fun fact that doubles as a somewhat unsettling commentary on our modern world, AGL doesn’t stand for Australian Gas Light company any more, in fact it doesn’t stand for anything. It’s just AGL. How did this situation arise? It started with a merger with Alinta Ltd. Yes, AGL and Alinta Energy are related. After the merger the Australian Gas Light company, became, simply, “AGL” and Alinta Ltd became Alinta Energy. The two companies presently trade independently, with different marketing, prices and branding from one another. It’s quite interesting to think about the implications of this. While Alinta and AGL compete on price in the Australian energy market at one point they merged to become one entity. Very few people know this and it’s quite troubling to think about when considered alongside the skyrocketing price of power in this country. Are this big retailers really concerned about getting a better deal for their customers?

AGL Today

In the years following the transformation of the humble Australian Gas Light company into the massive corporation AGL, they energy market been party to a heap of changes. For one the price of power has gotten really out of control. How much has it gone up by? It really depends on how you look at it and what state you’re in. For starters most people assessments of Australia’s energy situation put the price increase at over 100% in the past ten years. That is insane. That means that if you were spending $1500 a year in 2009, you might be spending $3000 a year today. The big retailers, such as AGL, Energy Australia and Origin Energy, are partly to blame for this but there’s also the issue of government deregulation.

However as for AGL today they’re still a very popular company. In fact they have over 3 million companies, as big as nearly three Adelaides. Do we chalk that up to an effective business strategy? Or perhaps it’s affordable prices? Perhaps it’s just the fact that this company has been here longer than some of your families. All in all though it’s been a complicated and long journey for the Australian gas light company, as it has evolved from providing town gas, to natural gas, to powering over 3 million homes across the country.