Electric Vehicle Charging Stations in Ottawa-Gatineau

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by silvergate

Transit would be ideal, if the only thing that changes in 50 years is the energy our cars run on then we are still doing it wrong.

EVs are a much easier path to the low carbon future we need to have than widespread transit use.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by acottawa

There are about 8 million cars in Ontario if each one draws say 5kwh a night that is 40 MWh. Current electricity demand for the province is 17 MW. To meet that kind of demand that province would have to build massive capacity that would probably be fossil fuels.

All of your answers to all of the EV problems seems to be "all the technology in the future will be better". That may well be the case, but it makes no sense to try to upscale the technology until it is ready. the government did that with light bulbs, trying to encourage he adoption of crappy CFL bulbs before good LED bulbs were ready for scale. The result is lots of mercury went to landfill for no good reason.

The technology won't be ready until there is a market for it because nobody is going to put billions into researching something they can't sell; conversely, there won't be a market for it until the technology is ready. It's a catch-22, and the solution is to keep growing the market share for EVs to keep the innovators of the world certain they have a future. (For the same reason, the common argument that "we shouldn't have carbon taxes until alternative energy is more advanced" is completely bunk as well). To keep with the lightbulb analogy, if it weren't for government policies designed to push out incandescent light bulbs, cheap LEDs would have never been invented.

Early signs from widespread demand for next-gen EVs like the Bolt and the Tesla 3 are that EVs will have a massive (5x-10x) increase in sales by the end of the decade. That's enough to incentivize research that can break through remaining problems, allowing mass market share by the early 2030s.

[silvergate]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

EVs are a much easier path to the low carbon future we need to have than widespread transit use.

Depends on how you measure. If we continue to manufacture millions of cars, and you factor in the environmental costs from mining, transport, production etc etc, plus continued suburban expansion, it would be the easy path for sure, just not necessarily the best path.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by acottawa

There are about 8 million cars in Ontario if each one draws say 5kwh a night that is 40 MWh. Current electricity demand for the province is 17 MW. To meet that kind of demand that province would have to build massive capacity that would probably be fossil fuels.

Do you think they had those concerns when air conditioning was invented?

[waterloowarrior]

Originally Posted by acottawa

There are about 8 million cars in Ontario if each one draws say 5kwh a night that is 40 MWh. Current electricity demand for the province is 17 MW. To meet that kind of demand that province would have to build massive capacity that would probably be fossil fuels.

All of your answers to all of the EV problems seems to be "all the technology in the future will be better". That may well be the case, but it makes no sense to try to upscale the technology until it is ready. the government did that with light bulbs, trying to encourage he adoption of crappy CFL bulbs before good LED bulbs were ready for scale. The result is lots of mercury went to landfill for no good reason.

http://www.lfpress.com/2016/04/03/on...-electric-cars

The forecast, dealing with Ontario’s electricity supply and demand to 2035, assumes a gradual increase in electric cars over the next 10 to 20 years.

“The Ontario government has significant programs in place to support people going to electric vehicles. We do see increases in the take-up of electric vehicles and that is going to increase demand for electricity,” Farmer said.

If one million vehicles, or 13 per cent of Ontario’s total, are electric by then, recharging them would use 2.2 per cent of Ontario’s electrical-grid capacity.

If all vehicles in Ontario are electric at point, the energy draw would be 17 per cent of the grid.

The IESO is betting on a middle ground, a 50-per-cent annual increase in electric-car sales that will put 600,000 of the vehicles on Ontario roads by 2035.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Do you think they had those concerns when air conditioning was invented?

Dc chargers draw 50-100 kw. An air conditioner draws 3-5.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Do you think they had those concerns when air conditioning was invented?

Air conditioning led to significant demand for electricity and resulted in major expansions to power generation in the US (less so in Canada due to our climate).

Most experts have generally stated that the impact to grid loads from EVs will be less than it was during the adoption of air conditioning in the 1970s and 1980s. The key difference is that EV charging will be mostly overnight when there's not much else consuming power, whereas AC use is mainly during the afternoon and early evening when the entire economy is humming.

[Buggys]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Except few people make these kinds of trips regularly. Maybe 10 days a year tops.

On average, cars are used for 60km a day in Canada.

True road trips are usually not common. However, there isn't much of a transportation alternative for them besides the gas car.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Buggys

True road trips are usually not common. However, there isn't much of a transportation alternative for them besides the gas car.

For this reason, EVs will at first be primarily second cars in multi-car households.

[jimmyjones]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Dc chargers draw 50-100 kw. An air conditioner draws 3-5.

That doesn't seem right at all given how long is takes to charge an EV on a residential charger. You aren't charging a Tesla P100D (100 kWH) in a single hour at home for instance.
Unless you were talking about the grid at large (including actual EV charging stations like the super charger network)?

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by jimmyjones

That doesn't seem right at all given how long is takes to charge an EV on a residential charger. You aren't charging a Tesla P100D (100 kWH) in a single hour at home for instance.
Unless you were talking about the grid at large (including actual EV charging stations like the super charger network)?

That's is for a 480V fast charger (level 3), which people on this forum have been encouraging condos and such to install (and the Ontario government gives up to $1000 for). If you plug it into a 120V socket it obviously won't use that much power, but it also won't be able to fully charge a car during the low rate hours.

Most articles seem to suggest the problem isn't the overall grid (which is probably over capacity in most places they were designed to support industries that have closed down) but the local grid where residential neighbourhoods are not wired for that kind of high-intensity usage.

[lrt's friend]

I think our priority should be to encourage households to return to needing only one car. This will be real progress.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I think our priority should be to encourage households to return to needing only one car. This will be real progress.

One might start by encouraging households to return to needing only two or three cars! The longest journey begins with a single step!

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

The technology won't be ready until there is a market for it because nobody is going to put billions into researching something they can't sell; conversely, there won't be a market for it until the technology is ready. It's a catch-22, and the solution is to keep growing the market share for EVs to keep the innovators of the world certain they have a future. (For the same reason, the common argument that "we shouldn't have carbon taxes until alternative energy is more advanced" is completely bunk as well). To keep with the lightbulb analogy, if it weren't for government policies designed to push out incandescent light bulbs, cheap LEDs would have never been invented.

Early signs from widespread demand for next-gen EVs like the Bolt and the Tesla 3 are that EVs will have a massive (5x-10x) increase in sales by the end of the decade. That's enough to incentivize research that can break through remaining problems, allowing mass market share by the early 2030s.

I don't agree with that. I think it will encourage companies to double-down on lithium ion (to the detriment of other technologies) because governments are stepping in to try to mitigate the cost and range problems. Government spending would be much better directed at R&D instead of forcing a non-scale-able technology on the market too soon.

Either way, Ontario is 0.93% of the worldwide car market, so what Ontario does is not moving companies one way or the other, so Ontario is just funding hobby cars for rich people (and if the objective is to reduce carbon emissions, money that could be spent in better ways).

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I don't agree with that. I think it will encourage companies to double-down on lithium ion (to the detriment of other technologies) because governments are stepping in to try to mitigate the cost and range problems. Government spending would be much better directed at R&D instead of forcing a non-scale-able technology on the market too soon.

Either way, Ontario is 0.93% of the worldwide car market, so what Ontario does is not moving companies one way or the other, so Ontario is just funding hobby cars for rich people (and if the objective is to reduce carbon emissions, money that could be spent in better ways).

Unless the Govt of Ontario has locked in secret agreements with the auto makers to produce electric cars in Ontario, I confess that the logic of subsidizing electric PMVs (and for the wealthy, at that) escapes me.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by acottawa

That's is for a 480V fast charger (level 3), which people on this forum have been encouraging condos and such to install (and the Ontario government gives up to $1000 for). If you plug it into a 120V socket it obviously won't use that much power, but it also won't be able to fully charge a car during the low rate hours.

For overnight charging, a level 2, 32A 240V AC charger (on a 40A circuit) would be adequate for the vast majority of people. This will give you about 50 km range per hour of charging. This is more than enough most of the time (it usually won't be "empty" when you plug it in) but gives you some head room when you need that extra oomph or future proofing for when longer range batteries are available.

[lrt's friend]

Yes, so many of these rebates and tax breaks seem to go to people with extra money to spend, whether it is EVs or house renovations that are designed to reduce carbon emissions. For people without extra money, we seem to get screwed every time where my tax money goes to people who have more so that they can play around with the latest and usually overpriced technology. Then those subsidies are used to save money, again thanks to my tax money. And then the cycle is repeated with the next round of subsidies.

[zzptichka]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Yes, so many of these rebates and tax breaks seem to go to people with extra money to spend, whether it is EVs or house renovations that are designed to reduce carbon emissions. For people without extra money, we seem to get screwed every time where my tax money goes to people who have more so that they can play around with the latest and usually overpriced technology. Then those subsidies are used to save money, again thanks to my tax money. And then the cycle is repeated with the next round of subsidies.

Which is only one of the reasons why all these subsidies should be scrapped and replaced with universal carbon tax.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by acottawa

That's is for a 480V fast charger (level 3), which people on this forum have been encouraging condos and such to install (and the Ontario government gives up to $1000 for). If you plug it into a 120V socket it obviously won't use that much power, but it also won't be able to fully charge a car during the low rate hours.

That's not 480V fast chargers... the ones being installed in condos and paid for by the government's $1000 program are "Level 2" 240V chargers (240V is what ovens and clothes dryers use), which take about eight hours to get the full 300km-350km worth of charge. These are the chargers that will likely make up the vast majority of electric charging as they're the perfect rate to fill up a car battery overnight.

480V fast "Level 3" chargers cost something like $20k-$30k to install and residential wiring can't even support them. 240V is the maximum voltage available in a residential circuit. These Level 3 chargers are only being installed at public charging stations.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

Which is only one of the reasons why all these subsidies should be scrapped and replaced with universal carbon tax.

The sheer number of subsidy programs being funded by the Ontario carbon tax is somewhat ridiculous; there's something like two hundred programs each costing a few tens of millions each that have been created to spend the projected $2 billion a year in carbon tax revenue. And each one is of course designed to maximize political return. When Patrick Brown proposed to retool the carbon tax program to simply use the revenues to cut other taxes like what BC does, he's definitely on to something.