Two St. Albert businessmen want the city to set up a solar-powered charging station to rev up for the future of electric cars. But drivers of those cars say they're skeptical of the premise.
Steven Manchuk of the company Eco Charge spoke to city council last Jan. 25 to ask for help in setting up a solar-powered electric car charging station in town.
The project is part of a business venture he and St. Albert's Michael Trabysh are setting up to market said stations.
Electric cars are on the rise in Canada, Manchuk told council, with people seeing them as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But when those cars charge use grid-fed electricity, they're getting it from dirty (greenhouse-gas intense) sources, which defeats the whole point of having an electric car.
"We think it's a lot better to give back and use solar and wind to give back energy to charge the vehicle."
In an interview, Manchuk, who lives in St. Albert, pitched the idea of an electric charging station married to a pole-mounted 200-to-300 watt solar panel, possibly with a card-swipe system so people could pay for power.
"One pole isn't going to charge a whole car," he said – the panels would provide only part of the power, with the rest coming from the power grid. But the stations would also put clean power into the grid when they're not in use.
"People can see we're doing something green."
Manchuk envisioned a network of these stations throughout the region that would eliminate one of the biggest obstacles to electric car ownership: range anxiety.
"We want to grow that technology and grow that infrastructure so that people can travel."
These stations work well with St. Albert's goals of being a smart city, Manchuk said. He wanted the city to help find a place and funding for a pilot station, which he estimated would cost $10,000 to $12,000. He hoped to have it in place by October.
Coun. Cathy Heron said she asked Manchuk to present his idea to the city's smart city committee.
"I love it," she said of the idea, but the city might have to put a project like this out to public tender.
“Greenwashing,” says EV fan
Plugshare.com lists three publicly available car-charging stations in St. Albert, with five more located just past the Anthony Henday in Edmonton.
One of the St. Albert stations is already solar powered. Alberco Construction president Ron Simonsmeier has a station at his office in the Riel Business Park hooked into a huge 54-kilowatt solar array.
Simonsmeier said he typically sees one or two drivers use the station each month whenever he's not using it. The solar panels power his office and put any excess energy into the grid or charging cars.
Although he was not familiar with Manchuk's project, he noted that you'd need a lot of solar panels just to charge a car. Most electric car owners also charge their cars at home, using stations like his when they're passing through town.
"People like to go where you don't have to pay for power," he added, and stations such as his are free.
Andrew Bell of the Electric Vehicle Association of Alberta called the proposed stations a "gimmick" when he heard of them. A small panel won't generate enough in the few hours a car is parked at a station to make a meaningful dent in its consumption, as the cars need about six kilowatts (6,000 watts) per kilometre.
"You simply don't have the square footage," he said. "If someone is just sticking a couple of solar modules on top of their charge station, that's a little bit of green-washing in my view."
A three-kilowatt solar array will generate enough energy to offset the power drawn by an electric car over the course of a year, Bell said. Once you account for the cost of the gasoline you're not buying, you'll get your $10,000 investment back in about 4.5 years.
Alberta has about 300 electric cars right now, and about 80 per cent of them charge at home, he continued. Most of the 130 charging stations between Edmonton and Calgary are free.
Bell said St. Albert could best support electric vehicles by offering incentives to buy them (as Ontario does), investing in super-fast 450V charging stations, or building a large solar array tied into a station.
"I'm all for more charging stations and networks, but it's got to have solid policy around it."
