Provincial officials say they're working to bring more EV chargers to northern Ontario

Spokespeople for the province, the Ontario Energy Board and the Independent Electricity System Operator say work is underway to improve electric vehicle charging infrastructure in rural and remote parts of the province, including the north.

The initiatives include new transmission lines, upgrades to generating stations, funding for new charging stations, and a review of how utilities plan for and charge for upgrades needed to connect the stations. 

The assurances come after reports surfaced in June that EV drivers were becoming stranded between Thunder Bay and Sault Ste-Marie because the lone chargers in three neighbouring communities spanning nearly 500 kilometres were all out of service at the same time.

Tesla chargers on the same stretch of highway were operational, but they are not currently compatible with non-Tesla vehicles, resulting in some drivers needing to be towed to other towns or overnighting in hotels while they connected to Level 2 chargers.

"June was a rough month for this area," said Real Deschatelets, a volunteer with the Electric Vehicle Association of Northern Ontario (EVANO). "The biggest disappointment in owning an EV is public charging — public fast charging." 

The Ontario Energy Board told CBC News in an email that it's working to address the barriers to installing chargers that were identified late last year in a survey of charging providers and utility companies.

Charging providers told the board that the cost of installing and operating charging stations is the biggest single deterrent to building more of them.

Some also said that they fear there isn't enough demand for the service. 

Marcus Luft, the manager of Badanai Motors General Manager in Thunder Bay, Ont., shared a candid example of the kind of sobering cost-benefit analysis that might deter some installations. 

A recent upgrade to put in nine Level Two chargers and a pair of 50-kilowatt fast chargers worth $33,000 each as part of an agreement with Cadillac came to roughly $500,000 once the building's electrical system was upgraded and all of the unites were installed, Luft said. 

"The revenue stream is miniscule," he said. "It doesn't even right now cover the monthly charge just to have hydro have the meter attached to the building, to be honest with you." 

In June, the company earned just $199.78 in charging revenue from the chargers, Luft said. 

Charging providers can access federal funding for charger installation through the Zero Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Program (ZEVIP), administered in Thunder Bay by the city's economic development commission, which covers up to 50 per cent of the cost of installations up to prescribed amounts. 

Nonetheless, upfront costs remain a concern for would-be charging station owners, according to the energy board survey.

Adding to the cost of installation and operation is the cost of upgrades to the electrical system, which charging providers cited as the second biggest deterrent to building more stations, right behind the cost of the chargers themselves. 

The energy board's Distribution System Code requires utility companies to charge individual customers the difference between the cost of a requested upgrade and the revenue the upgrade will generate.

In the case of EV charging infrastructure, the amount could be tens of thousands of dollars.

In Windsor, Ont., Canada's auto manufacturing capital, Enwin Utilities is hesitant to pass the cost of charging stations onto their consumers. 

"We wouldn't charge a ratepayer for something they are not going to enjoy," explained Garry Rossi, the president and CEO of Enwin. 

"Most of these businesses… they're all charging for the use of their EV chargers, so that's a for-profit industry, so it wouldn't be fair to our ratepayers to have them pay for that infrastructure."

But some utility companies suggested to the energy board in its survey that they wanted more guidance on how to balance their traditional obligation to prudently invest in infrastructure in response to demand with their obligation to facilitate EV adoption by preparing for demand that has not yet materialized. 

The president and CEO of Sault Ste-Marie utility PUC Services questioned if it might be time to revisit the traditional formula of making proponents pay for upgrades when it comes to EV chargers. 

New guidance for industry this fall

"The fact is that in order to make those economical, we have to figure out ways that we're going to spread some of those costs across the greater group of the population," said Robert Brewer, who drives an electric vehicle himself. "Because they're all actually benefiting from it at the end of the day, or anybody who's moving to EVs is."

A spokesperson for the Ontario Energy Board said in an email that it has responded to the concerns raised in the survey by striking a working group that is looking to address the concerns about cost-sharing, and streamline the process of connecting charging stations.

It expects to have new guidance for the industry this fall.

Meanwhile, the Independent Electricity System Operator, which manages the electricity system on a province-wide scale, is overseeing several large-scale upgrades in northern Ontario that will support EV charging, among other things, a spokesperson told CBC News in an email.

Those include the East-West Tie transmission line between Thunder Bay and Wawa and the Waasigan power line from Thunder Bay to Atikokan and Dryden. 

It has also recommended the creation of two new lines from Sudbury to Sault Ste-Marie and Timmins to Wawa.

And it's identified work that needs to be done at power stations in the northwest, which Hydro One is doing.

Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation have also contributed to expanding the charging network through their joint venture, Ivy, which has so far built 150 charging stations across the province, including a series of owner-operated stations in small northern Ontario towns such as White River. 

In March 2022, the Ontario government announced it was building on Ivy's success by pledging another $91 million to build more chargers outside of urban centres in places like highway rest areas, carpool parking lots, and Ontario Parks. 

But Ivy's general manager, Mike Kitchen said it has faced supply chain issues in its efforts to build and launch stations, resulting in delays of up to a year to get parts such as transformers.  

"We do our best to maintain a local spare parts inventory," he said. "Those long lead times just set you back if you need to upgrade a given site and add an additional transformer in order to be able to energize some of these Level 3 chargers." 

Nonetheless, Kitchen said, he believes drivers can expect to see more charging stations rolling out in the near future as automakers continue to expand their electric vehicle offerings. 

In July, seven leading automakers announced their intention to construct their own charging network across North America – though the joint venture has yet to receive regulatory approval, according to BMW Canada's director of corporate communications, Marc Belcourt.

Hyundai's national PR manager, Jennifer McCarthy, said there may not be a Canada-specific announcement until early 2024.