SWTCH Energy is developing technology solutions that enable scaling up charging infrastructure for multifamily properties, which is seen as essential for wide EV adoption.Supplied
The shift away from vehicles powered by internal combustion engines is considered key for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the Canadian government has mandated that all vehicles sold in Canada must be either fully electric, hybrids or hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles by 2035.
Carter Li, CEO at SWTCH Energy, believes that “from a sustainability perspective, this will be an exciting milestone to achieve.
“From the perspective of drivers, however, that excitement comes with a major asterisk: inadequate access to home charging can make the electric vehicle [EV] experience substantially worse,” he says. “With the exception of cases where a person is on a long trip, the experience typically considered best for EV charging looks something like this: either every night or when needed throughout the week, an EV driver arrives home and plugs their car into a private charging station, and by morning, the car is fully charged.”
While this scenario is typically quite easy to realize for single-family dwellings with a driveway, not everyone lives in a single-family home, says Mr. Li. “More than 34 per cent of Canadians live in apartments or condos. When it comes to installing EV chargers, multifamily properties come with particular challenges.”
Since most existing apartment and condo buildings were not built with EV charging in mind, their electrical systems typically don’t have the excess capacity to accommodate EV chargers. This can not only make installing enough chargers expensive but also create spikes in electricity consumption, he explains. “We’re seeing an unfortunate dynamic play out, where the number of EV owners is set to explode, with far too many multifamily properties not ready to accommodate their needs.”
Options to address this conundrum include implementing multifamily EV charging or relying on public charging infrastructure. While both are necessary, Mr. Li believes at-home charging cannot be overlooked. “Public charging is less convenient – imagine having to go somewhere else to charge up your phone at the end of the day, and you’ll get an idea.”
To scale the kind of at-home charging infrastructure needed for wide EV adoption, he suggests to “continue offering the kinds of incentives that exist today at the federal, provincial and local levels [since] price is one of the larger blockers for deploying EV chargers at multifamily properties.”
What’s more, technology players need to keep coming up with technological solutions that make EV charging more affordable and manageable for property owners. At SWTCH, for example, “we invested in developing things like load management technology,” he says. “This allows multiple chargers to be installed along a single circuit to reduce the costs of electrical upgrades and demand response capabilities to shut off charging when a building’s overall electrical demand is too high.”
A third measure is for policymakers to prioritize “EV-readiness” and ensure buildings are either built or retrofitted to accommodate the installation and use of car chargers on their premises, he says. “Where that isn’t sufficient motivation, legal requirement is a great alternative to ensure we get where we need to be.”
The move to electrify transportation represents “a rare and exciting revolution,” says Mr. Li. “It should be a unifying project that we can all benefit from as equally as possible, and we have to take care to do things the right way and ensure access to convenient charging for everyone.”
Advertising feature produced by Randall Anthony Communications. The Globe’s editorial department was not involved.