AGL Energy has started to build a virtual power plant of solar panels, smart chargers and batteries controlled by a sophisticated digital platform.

It’s also phasing out unreliable and increasingly expensive coal-fired power plants and building big batteries on the sites of the former generation assets that made AGL’s Australia biggest carbon emitter.

“We do both of those things and do them well – that ultimately will lead to a fully decarbonised economy,” AGL chief executive Damien Nicks told AAP.

“There’s two elements to this transition. One, connecting a customer to a sustainable future and two, transitioning our portfolio.

“If you get the orchestration of the home right, you’re needing less generation to come from the assets.”

The network of decentralised solar energy systems and electric vehicle smart chargers surged 44 per cent to 199 megawatts in the six months to December.

“We’re now the number one supplier of solar and battery into the market,” Nicks said.

AGL also has a number of partnerships that can put smart charging into the home.

After a turbulent year, the company is also rebuilding its relationship with shareholders including tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes.

AGL had its old plans shot down when Cannon-Brookes took a $650 million stake through his investment arm Grok Ventures to speed up the closure of coal-fired generators.

The board was overhauled, a new executive team appointed and a strategy for more rapid decarbonisation began, coinciding with an energy crisis and government intervention to rein in runaway prices.

“I’m trying to put ’22 behind us,” Nicks said.

He said AGL would be talking to all shareholders, including the biggest – Grok – about the transition to new energy and the $1.1 billion loss in the six months to December.

“We had a very tough start to July, but since that time a really strong performance across the business,” Nicks said.

He said what was pleasing over the past six months was the shared ambition and coordinated approach of state and federal governments on rolling out renewable energy.

As market leader in NSW and Victoria, he said it would be crucial to transition old coal-fired power plant sites to industrial energy hubs with grid-scale batteries.

The big battery on the site of the Liddell coal-fired power station will support energy security in NSW when the plant closes this year.

Battery energy systems at South Australia’s Torrens Island and Broken Hill in NSW are on track to commence operations mid-year.

A feasibility study is also underway with Japanese energy giant Idemitsu for a pumped hydro project on the site of its decommissioned Muswellbrook coal mine.

Idemitsu’s masterplan for the old mine site includes a proposal to convert the area to a clean energy and industrial precinct, similar to AGL’s approach to repurposing Liddell, Torrens and a plant in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley.

The Loy Yang A power plant in Victoria will shut down a decade earlier than once planned as AGL aims to exit coal by 2035.

But AGL remains concerned federal intervention on gas and coal commodity prices, intended to control runaway energy prices, could spook the investors needed to back Australia’s transition to clean energy.