Would you take out an energy plan with Shell?

While you might recognise the name when grabbing petrol, oil and gas giant Shell have expressed a clear interest in the residential energy market.

In July 2017, Shell launched its energy trading business where it acquired 12 massive industrial gas customers, but it’s now eyeing the residential energy market.

"We have seen opportunities to improve the efficiencies in the Australian market, from across the wholesale and retail markets," said Shell Australia Chairwoman, Zoe Yujnovich.

In February, Shell announced it had acquired German energy storage company, Sonnen, introducing it into the Australian battery market and have acknowledged that renewable energy is leading the way in long term electricity supply.

“It’s interesting to see an oil company take such a massive interest in the energy market, particularly renewable energy,” said Mozo Energy Expert, Nathan Warne.

“They’ve recognised that solar is a massive part of Australia’s future and they want to be a part of it.”

Sink or swim

But while the company remains optimistic about their future in the residential energy market, it will still be a while before Aussies can take out an electricity plan with the oil and gas giant.

“They’re a massive household name so I think they’ll need to launch a product that’s never been done before to grab a customer’s attention and stay popular,” said Warne.

And he’s not wrong as Maarten Wetselaar, Shell’s Director of Gas and New Energies, admitted that the company’s focus had to shift to gas and electricity in order to stay relevant to customers.

"For us, an energy company, to remain relevant if we're not really good at the provision of low carbon power we ... will lose a lot of the relevance that we have today and we will actually lose our customer-facing business," he said.

"It would be an enormously lost opportunity if we didn't get really good at this, so the plan is to get really good at the provision of electrons both to retail customers and to commercial and industrial customers."

The zero carbon goal

Shell have also expressed a keen interest in supplying low-carbon electricity and have spent $1 billion a year in ongoing investments, like the Prelude FLNG (floating liquified natural gas), which now sits 200 km off the coast of Western Australia.

And at a conference last week, Yujnovich and Weselaar both agreed that achieving zero-carbon LNG across the country comes down to national regulation on carbon pollution.

“Better to look at a national solution than one at state level. The wider you can draw the circle the better,” said Weselaar.

But since Aussies might have to wait a bit longer until they can take out a Shell electricity plan, they can compare some current offers in the market by using our energy comparison tool.