Click Energy brand to close, 200,000+ customers moving to AGL

The Click Energy brand will soon be closed after the industry regulator accepted an application to surrender its electricity and gas retail license, meaning all 200,000+ customers will be making their way over to AGL.

The end of Click Energy is not a huge surprise following its acquisition by AGL in September 2020. The Click Energy Group had only been purchased by Amaysim in 2017, but the phone plan provider’s foray into energy retail was to prove short-lived after closing its own Amaysim Energy brand in late 2020.

The end of Click Energy is a significant moment in Australian energy retail, said Canstar Blue Editor-in-Chief, Simon Downes.

“Click Energy was one of the most innovative – but also controversial – energy retailers to emerge when the markets were opened up to competition and fully deregulated,” he said. “It was probably the first retailer to seriously adopt an online business model which gave it a unique selling point in a fast-evolving market that saw it successfully leverage online and social media channels to get its message out there. This selling point of having low overheads and being able to pass on the savings to consumers worked very well as it became one of the biggest tier two retailers in Australia.

“However, Click Energy’s reputation was damaged when it was found to have made misleading claims about the potential savings on offer through its conditional discounts, resulting in costs of almost $1 million. This related to the use of large discounts on energy plans with very high base rates – a marketing tactic used by some retailers that would help trigger an investigation into the market by the ACCC and eventually lead to major industry reforms resulting in the creation of the Default Market Offer and Victorian Default Offer, as well as the Reference Price methodology to help consumers really understand where to find a good deal.”

The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) is taking submissions from stakeholders in relation to Click Energy’s application to surrender its retail authorisations, but with customer accounts set to move over to AGL, the application is likely to be approved in the coming weeks.

I’m a Click Energy customer – what do I do now?

Click Energy customers are somewhat in limbo at the moment, but there are no concerns of any disruption to your power supply. The switch over to AGL is likely to occur soon, meaning there is no need to do anything just yet. While details on what Click Energy customers can expect from AGL are patchy at this stage, you can be sure you are moving to a reputable retailer. That being said, there is never any harm in shopping around for a better energy deal.

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