More than 3.8 million electric cars are expected to be on Australian roads by 2030, according to federal government estimates, up from 83,000 electric vehicles earlier this year.

Brian Innes, from consulting firm Partners in Performance, said encouraging electric vehicle drivers to plug them in during off-peak hours would become more important as their numbers grew.

He said Australia was particularly well placed to accommodate electric vehicles due to its high solar energy generation.

"We need to make sure we look at EVs in a different way to the rest of the world, as if they are a solar sponge," he said.

"The worst case would be we have a solar problem in the middle of the day and we stop a free resource coming into the system and we have all these EVs that plug in when people come home at night and add to a super peak."