HOW CAN EV’S AND EV CHARGING SYSTEMS HELP HARDEN OUR GRID?
HOW CAN EV’S AND EV CHARGING SYSTEMS HELP HARDEN OUR GRID?
Posted on May 20, 2023
Once again, we have been hit by a major storm that has left many Islanders without
power. This was the strongest low-pressure storm ever to hit Canadian soil. If we
take a look at which communities were able to restore their local grid in the
quickest time, we will find that places like Summerside and Alberton, both of whom
have their own community based micro grids were in a better position to re-
establish services quite quickly.
More and more we see local communities turning to smart grid solutions. In China
this past Summer they experienced record breaking high temperature in 17 cities
that caused great concern about “brown outs” and Black outs” due to the over
strain on those respective electric grids. The severity of the strain caused some
factories and businesses to shut down. This had severe consequences to workers
incomes because lost time at work. However, the bright side in several cities was
the fact that the sheer number of electric vehicles and EV charging stations were
able to temporarily suspend their charging, or in some cases “battery swap”
locations that have a reservoir of electrical storage to divert this stored electricity
back to the respective grids to boost the electrical supply during the peak hours of
electrical consumption.
This same approach is also becoming more and more interesting to many
communities in North America as well. In New Hampshire, the state-run Power Co-
op has just initiated a program whereby EV owners with home chargers are eligible
to sign up to a program where they charge their Electric Vehicles during the night
when the demand for electricity is at its lowest and receive special low rates for
electricity. Then the EV’s that are plugged in during the peak times of energy
consumption during the day, when electricity rates are their highest, and the
demands on the grid are the greatest, the grid can pull electricity from the EV’s.
This is fast becoming a great resource to help stabilize the grids while more and
more clean energy solutions are being developed to create greater supply to the
grids. This is forward sustainable thinking which is relatively low cost and offers an
incredible opportunity for local communities to also create new employment
opportunities in installing new, small scale energy production and storage. Of
course, it also creates even more opportunities for local creative minds to develop
new industries such as designing and building solar and wind electrical production
in small scale at that same local level.
The future is here, and many Canadian companies are seeing this blossoming new
potential in mineral development and battery technologies and a complete line of
support industries. Look at the number of new companies looking at clean mining
for lithium in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and New Brunswick. Not to mention
the new contracts in Nova Scotia that recently signed major contracts with Germany
to produce and store “Green Hydrogen” for Germany’s new hydrogen cell
technology mass transit rail. We truly are at the ground level of an emerging
technological boom time that promises incredible opportunities. In the past few
months alone literally billions of dollars are being invested around the world in
these new emerging technologies. We need to get on board.
Holland college has an incredible wind technology program and we have some of
the best technicians in the world. These technicians even go to Europe, especially in
Scotland and the North Sea. Yet we are not designing and building our own wind
turbines as of yet. We are fortunate in that we have the talented people that
potentially could be doing exactly that. New green technology designed and built by
Islanders. We have the talented people who could be designing and building solar
panels, solar and wind powered EV charging stations that would support our future
needs and provide additional resources in “green Energy” production that would
benefit all Islanders.
We, here at Township Chevrolet, are doing our part by doing outreach to local island
communities, talking to local governments, providing support and resource
information to the local businesses of these communities as well to help facilitate
the pending shift to electrified mobility. Doing our part to guarantee the future of
?children and grand children?
?children and grand children?