As more and more people begin to purchase electric vehicles, power usage will go up. The City of Medicine Hat anticipates its 'environmental road map,' likely coming in 2022, will include ways to accommodate the increase.--cp file photo
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
How to accommodate increased popularity of electric vehicles – both producing enough power as well as delivering it to home charging stations – will be included in a planned City of Medicine Hat “environmental road map” likely due in 2021.
The topic has come up in general discussions at council as well as city hall committee meetings in December touching on everything from power grid reinforcement, new home building standards and even how the extra home power usage should be charged.
“It’s going to looked at and evaluated,” said Coun. Alison Van Dyke, chair of the utility and infrastructure committee, who was elected this fall.
She said after strategic planning in the early new year, she expects an environmental plan should be completed by year end, considering the magnitude and importance of the issue.
“We heard from voters that they want to city to plan to be sustainable,” said Van Dyke. “I’m very impressed with the work that’s been done already.”
Prior to the election, the utility division provided an overview of long-term projects and potential future challenges, including the need to upgrade large power lines as well as service connections to homes to feed an increasingly energized lifestyle of Hatters.
That includes not only electric cars, which require large amounts of power relatively quickly to charge, but also generally more electronics, more powerful home computers and electric heating systems.
New committee member Coun. Robert Dumanowski said he is concerned with home hookups being too small, and might favour requiring connections to be up-sized, both to save retrofitting costs for new home owners, but also aid the city’s power distribution planning.
“EVs will change the landscape,” Dumanowski told council. “As much as we’re conserving energy, there’s an inverse relationship, and in older neighbourhoods, adding an EV charger in a garage, you’re limited.
“If we don’t keep up, we’ll have a huge problem.”
Along with the size of the connections to homes, battery-powered vehicles also present a curve ball to energy conservation planning, according to Coun. Darren Hirsch while debating new utility rates this month.
The HatSmart program provides grants to install higher-efficiency appliances, better insulation or solar panels with money collected from customers who use an above average amount of power in any given month.
That design is meant to help Hatters looking to improve their energy use with the upfront costs and provide a disincentive to heavy power users.
However, Hatters who buy an electric vehicle can expect to see energy use rise well above normal, said Hirsch, thereby exposing them to the fees even though they have made the environmentally conscious choice.
“What do we say to a ratepayer who says they’ve done the right thing and bought an electric vehicle and they face this exorbitant surcharge,” asked Hirsch. “I think it’s forced upon us to rethink the structure.”
Administrators say power use is currently falling on a per person level, but adding vehicle charging or heat-pump furnaces would reverse that trend, according to utility division head Brad Maynes.
“As the framework evolves and as we see wider spread adoption of EVs, we’ll be looking at particular policies,” he told Hirsch at council.
“We want to encourage consumption and wise use of resources. As we move forward I except the program to reflect changing times.”
In terms of line upgrades, the city’s utility spent $38 million in the mid-2010s to install higher-capacity lines, reinforcing a loop around the city to increase stability. It also added one new substation recently in the northwest and planning is now underway for another in the southwest area of the city.
