The Province announced the recipients of the $20 million Electric Vehicle Chargers Ontario (EVCO) grant program this week. To the disappointment of Huntsville Place Mall owners, their location wasn’t among them.
“I’m sorry to hear it,” said Alan Peters. “Who knows…maybe they’ll do it again although I doubt it. I think it will have to be something that’s entrepreneurially done. But if we have the opportunity, we would do it again. Why not serve everyone?”
The Town of Huntsville wasn’t able to submit an application for the grant program in time, but sustainability co-ordinator Rebecca Francis got the go-ahead from Council at the March 30 General Committee meeting to apply for any future funding that arises.
It’s not all bad news, though. Among the grant recipients is Koben Systems Inc. of Mississauga which has received more than $11 million to create a province-wide system of 193 Level 2 chargers and 144 Level 3 chargers. Bob Nichols, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Transportation, confirmed that the province-wide network plan will include Level 3 chargers in Muskoka, although the exact locations have not been identified. There’s hope for Huntsville yet.
The funding for the grants is coming from Ontario’s Green Investment Fund. Nearly 500 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations will be built at over 250 locations in Ontario in 2017. In a release, the MTO said that this expansion will “help address ‘range anxiety,’ a common concern of consumers regarding the distance electric vehicles can travel compared to traditional vehicles. By building a more robust network of public chargers across Ontario, electric vehicle owners can now plan longer trips with more confidence that a charging station is as readily available as a gas station is.”
The release added that the charging stations will be installed at a wide variety of locations, including McDonalds and Tim Horton’s restaurants, and at numerous municipal properties and businesses across Ontario. Exact locations will be announced in coming months.
The province received more than 200 applications for the program, totaling more than $165 million in funding requests. A full list of the grant recipients can be found here. Learn more about the Electric Vehicle Chargers Ontario project here.
Did you miss Doppler’s earlier story on the electric vehicle grant program? Read it at this link: Electric vehicle owners could soon get a charge out of Huntsville.
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Oops. Thanks David. Indeed I had them backwards.
Believe it? It’s already a reality to Tesla owners and their ever growing network of Supercharger stations.
Andrew, you have the numbers mixed up. Level 3 or “fast charging” is typically 480V. These charge to 80% in about a half hour delivering DC energy directly to the battery. Level 2 is usually 240V sending power to the on-board charger and level 1 is a typical 120V wall type household plug.
I’ll believe free recharging when I see free gas at the local Shell, Esso and Petro Canada stations.
If the technology can’t support itself on a free market competitive basis then it is nothing but a government “feel good” scheme with no basis and no excuse to continue.
As explanation, Level 3 is simple 120 V (like plugging in your toaster) and it would take many hours to recharge an EV (electric vehicle) using Level 3. BUT, the good news is that it is relatively inexpensive to install a Level 3 charging system and realistically most of our larger stores in the Huntsville area could install these quite easily. Whether to offer them free of charge or bill the customer would depend on the vendor…would the customer shop there while recharging? (e.g. a shopping mall). Block heater outlets have been around for a long time and these would work just fine.
Level 2 is much faster and somewhat more expensive to install because the customer would have to be billed and the hardware is more elaborate. An installation could cost the vendor up to $10,000 per station. But, hey, what does it cost to install a gas station?
We won’t talk about the DC Level 1 fast charging stations because they are VERY expensive. You won’t see many Level 1 charging stations outside of the major cities for a while.
EV’s are coming…the market is growing fast. Even without the modest government subsidy, we should encourage our local vendors to install charging stations in order to serve EV owners in the greater area surrounding Huntsville.