At its November 24 council meeting, councillors voted in support of the addition of two new EV charging stations to be installed at the Canada Summit Centre and McCulley Robertson Sport Complex.
The initiative comes from Lakeland Solutions, which was seeking council approval and support for a provincial funding application.
According to David Zilkey, Huntsville Climate Action Strategist, the province has resumed the ChargeON funding program to support the installation of EV charging infrastructure.
“As Huntsville is located within ChargeON’s Northern Region, EV chargers installed here are eligible for a grant covering 75% of total project costs. Lakeland Solutions is proposing to apply for this funding and provide the remaining 25% of project costs. Staff have had multiple discussions internally and with Lakeland Solutions about possible EV charging locations and have identified two sites to move forward with, pending final approval from Lakeland Solutions,” states Zikey’s report to council.
The charging stations would be located in the parking lots of the respective locations. Zilkey said options will be considered that do not modify the landscape.
Councillor Scott Morrison said he sees many EVs at McCaulley and said having a charging station there would be convenient. Parents could charge while watching their kids play. Morrison also asked how well the existing stations were being used.
According to Lakeland data, since the beginning of 2025 to date, there have been a total of 2384 transactions and over 95,000 kWh of energy delivered, which works out to an average of 39.8 kWh per session with an average charge time of about 27 minutes. That translates into an estimated $50,000 gross from the downtown site minus expenses.
Council agreed to endorse the funding application and staff is expected to return with further information.
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I hope Lakeland would carefully consider the type of plug these new EVs will have. I have a Chevy Volt and can’t find an EV charger with a J1772 plug anywhere in town and it’s frustrating. I would definitely use these if they were the right plug.
I own an EV and they are more convenient than the old horse and buggy gasoline power vehicles in every aspect. The Tesla Model Y is the best-selling vehicle of any kind in the world and unfortunately, they will not use these types of public chargers at all…. Why because Tesla’s charging network is the best period. You can now charge legacy vehicles at a Tesla superchargers as well, so who is going to use these public chargers? You would need to be desperate to need these unless they are free to use.
I say save taxpayers money unless you can be sure they will be used.
I would rather ride in a horse and buggy. The horse starts in cold weather and I don’t have to plug it in for hours.
While I’m all for more charging stations (even though, at this point, I don’t have an electric car), I am concerned about how much they might actually be used at the Summit Centre. Parking there is an issue now, and to take away some parking to use for charging stations that may remain empty for much of the time may not be what you want to do.