CONNECTIVITY AND RANGE ANXIETY (ARE) THE BIGGEST BARRIER FOR RESIDENTS.

“Slight changes in consumption of power can potentially become a very expensive proposition for consumers.”

Chuck Farmer, director of public affairs at the Independent Electricity System Operator, which oversees Ontario’s electricity grid, said the system is in good shape to manage a gradual increase in EVs, but there may be challenges, particularly if there is rapid adoption in specific areas.

“Where you may see an impact is at the local level, if you have a cluster of them, you may have to upgrade because there is a limit to how much capacity you can use,” he said. “That is the question local distribution companies are asking themselves: How do we prepare if a subdivision has many EVs arrive on the same transformer?”

Devin McCarthy, vice-president of public affairs at the Canadian Electricity Association, said electricity companies are actively looking for the best ways to integrate EVs into the utility grid.

“We’re focused on figuring out the right engineering to accommodate EVs and what we can do to manage load activity throughout the day,” he said. “Part of that is ensuring electricity companies have full information with where charging stations are going to be installed and ... to the extent possible, which customers will own them and what driveways they’ll be sitting in.”

Another consumer concern is being able to replenish electric vehicles at close to the same pace that you can gas up an internal combustion engine vehicle.

To that end, Toronto-based energy storage company eCamion has partnered with Leclanché, an energy storage provider, Geneva-based power producer SGEM and the federal government to install fast-charging stations on the Trans-Canada Highway between Sudbury, Ont., and Manitoba.

The stations will allow up to three drivers to simultaneously charge their electric cars from zero to full in about 30 minutes.

But what happens when more than three people show up at one charging station? Until charging technology improves, you better not be in a hurry.

Elad Barak, vice-president of business development at eCamion, said charging technology still has a long way to go in terms of meeting the expected future demand.

For example, Chargepoint, a California-based company that operates the world’s largest EV charging network, has announced an ultra-fast charging product with a maximum charging output between 200 and 1,000 volts, substantially faster than the Level 3 chargers, that can recharge vehicles in about 30 minutes. But it only takes five minutes to fill a gas tank.

“The technology we have now is what we need for the next 20 years during this transition to electric vehicles, when we don’t have enough capacity to justify upgrades to the grid,” Barak said. “But in order to allow this to happen, we want to make sure people with electric vehicles can use it to travel further. Twenty, 30 years from now, technology will help the industry as a whole transition to electric vehicles.”

In the Kootenays, EV chargers will be dispersed about 80 kilometres apart on average throughout the mountainous region. Several Level 2 and 3 chargers will be installed throughout the region in August.

“We’re on the forefront, in terms of broader collaboration and the regional scope of the design of the network,” Lohmann said.

“Putting one charging station in the middle of the region may be great for that one community and those that can make it there, but it’s not going to provide that opportunity for a bigger shift to electric vehicles. You need to be ahead of the game.” The International Energy Agency estimates four to 14 million publicly available charging outlets will be needed worldwide by 2030.