Electric cars could power Alberta's way towards a smarter electricity grid, says a local investor.
David Bromley was one of seven experts that took part in a panel on electrifying transportation this week at the Alberta Innovates – Technology Futures building in Edmonton. The talk was organized by the St. Albert-based Alberta Council of Technologies.
Bromley is the project director for the proposed Avenir project near St. Albert, which if built would focus on clean technology investment.
When it comes to cars, says Bromley, if we want to get off gasoline, we have to switch to electricity. "It's the only other infrastructure that's all over the place."
Electric cars would not only reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, but would also make our power grid more efficient. The batteries in those cars can be used to store energy from renewable sources during off hours when it's cheap, Bromley says, and release it (potentially at a profit for the driver) when it's needed. "The electric vehicle becomes a store of power," he says and helps us make better use of the energy we make.
Why EV?
Greenhouse gases and trade deficits are pushing the world to ditch oil as a fuel source, according to Axel Meisen, chair of foresight at Alberta Innovates and the panel's keynote speaker. Oil imports now account for about half of the American trade deficit, giving them a big incentive to reduce oil consumption.
Electric cars are far more efficient than gasoline ones, Meisen says, and produce no direct air pollution. (They may pollute indirectly through burning coal at power plants.) Industry has to overcome three challenges before they will be widely accepted: range, cost and infrastructure.
Nathan Armstrong is working on those problems. He's the president of Calgary's Motive Industries, which has designed an electric car that uses lightweight materials made from plants. Seven will hit the road for testing purposes this year, he says.
Cold weather would sap a lot of range out of most electric vehicles, Armstrong says. "If you get below about - 20 C, most batteries fail quickly."
His company was looking into heaters for its power packs to counter the cold, ones that could be fuelled by biofuels or natural gas.
Most Canadians drive less than 25 kilometres a day, notes Al Cormier, director of Electric Mobility Canada, which could blunt some range concerns. His group is now testing electric cars in Montreal to see how they handle Canadian winters.
Armstrong suspects a wave of cheap Chinese imports will drive down the cost of electric vehicles. "In China, they're hoping to get a million electric vehicles on the road by the end of the year and I think they'll probably do it."
Andy Dunbar of Leviton Manufacturing is working on support infrastructure. Leviton, based in Montreal, is building charge stations for electric cars that would work like gas pumps.
Most buildings have enough spare capacity to charge a few cars, Dunbar says, so many people will charge their rides at home. In the field, he suspects drivers will swipe their cards at charge stations to top off their car batteries while they shop. "There's thousands of locations already in the United States, and they're just coming to Canada now."
One of the biggest challenges for electric cars will be market acceptance, Armstrong says: studies suggest anywhere from 10 to 65 per cent of people would buy one if they could. "Electric cars have tried to come around five or six times in the last century and have always failed. Is this the right time?"
