The Electric Circuit to deploy 1,600 fast-charge stations in Québec over the next 10 years
27 January 2019
The Electric Circuit, Hydro-Québec’s public charging network, announced that fast-charge stations will now be deployed more quickly with the rollout of approximately one hundred new fast-charge stations. Over the next 10 years, 1,600 new fast-charge stations will be deployed in Québec.
In June 2018, the National Assembly unanimously adopted An Act to promote the establishment of a public fast-charging service for electric vehicles. The new legislation authorizes Hydro-Québec to use revenue from the increase in electricity sales generated by charges carried out primarily at electric vehicle drivers’ homes to fund the installation of more fast-charge stations. Electricity rates will therefore not be affected.
Hydro-Québec’s specific objectives are:
Commission 1,600 fast-charge stations in the next 10 years. As many as 22 new fast-charge stations have already been deployed in 2019 and about 100 in total will be deployed this year.
Expand the network in areas that currently have fewer fast-charge stations, such as Mauricie, Côte-Nord, Saguenay–Lac-St-Jean and Abitibi-Témiscamingue.
Densify the network in the busiest areas in order to eliminate waiting times at some stations in peak hours, particularly along highways.
Provide a high-quality, reliable service that is provided at the same price for all electric vehicle drivers so they can travel anywhere in Québec with ease.
Over time, the speed with which the new charging stations are installed will be modified based on the following:
Forecasts of the number of electric vehicle drivers, where they are located and the usage of existing charging stations.
Costs incurred by expanding the network.
New technologies that simplify the installation of fast-charge stations.
Ensuring that the rollout of fast-charge stations has no impact on electricity rates.
The successful rollout relies on the cooperation between partners who will provide space for the new charging stations, namely Desjardins, Le Groupe Crevier, Les Rôtisseries St-Hubert and Metro, as well as the Ministère des Transports du Québec, given that some charging stations will be located at rest stops.
Under its fast-charge infrastructure program, Natural Resources Canada selected three Hydro-Québec projects to receive financial assistance of approximately $5 million. These amounts will be used to fund the installation of approximately 100 fast-charge stations in Québec. The three selected projects are for the installation of 10 superstations with four fast-charge stations, as well as the deployment of 40 fast-charge stations on the north shore of the Fleuve Saint-Laurent (St. Lawrence River) and 20 fast-charge stations on the south shore.
There are currently close to 40,000 electric vehicles registered in Québec and the Electric Circuit has more than 1,700 charging stations, including 168 fast-charge stations.
A move in the right direction for current and future electrified vehicle users.
Many more EVs will/could be sold as soon as batteries' performance is increased (2X?), cost is reduced (by 50%) and extended e-range is increased to or close to or over 500 KM and many more public ultra speed charging facilities are available for EV owners without home charging facilities..
Posted by: HarveyD | 27 January 2019 at 09:25 AM
More broken-record stuff from the Alzheimer's patient.
Hey, Harvey, why don't you try thinking outside the box, like the possibilities of SMALLER batteries being cheaper and lighter and charging while the vehicle is in motion? It's time to throw your broken record away.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 27 January 2019 at 01:44 PM
How about a vehicle that has about a 150 mile electric range, give it a bio-fuel heater so it can mitigate most of the range lost in very cold weather, set it up with all the connections needed to connect with a trailer that will have about 40Kw of fuel-cells and a large enough high pressure tank to carry 600-700 miles worth of hydrogen- there are very few technical challenges, sure you'd want quicker charging batteries for those travel ranges (150-300 miles) where the economics of the trailer might not make sense -but for the most part I'd be logistical challenges and figuring out the economics- maybe the trailers could also serve as emergency generators .
Posted by: Bill | 27 January 2019 at 09:45 PM
HEVs, PHEVs, short range BEVs, ICEVs and large extremely costly NPPs and old CPPs are on their way out. The first three types of vehicle on this list are good but not good enough to satisfy the needs of the majority.
Regardless of SAEP preferences, the world (and even USA) will progressively switch to extended range various sizes electrified vehicles (BEVs/FCEVs) in the next 20/30 years.
Current CPPs and NPPs will also be progressively replaced with 24/7 REs and variable output NGPPs. Many large battery packs in future extended range BEVs will be used to level supply and demand. New larger wind turbines installed on higher towers in the right places and new multi-layer solar panels will be close to 50% efficient and supply a much higher percentage of the clean energy used.
Posted by: HarveyD | 28 January 2019 at 09:24 AM
Only if there is enough raw material for the batteries. So long as lithium is required for sufficiently light and compact batteries, there's going to be a hard limit on the number which can be made.
PHEVs push the materials limit problem down by about a factor of 10. They can accelerate the displacement of petroleum by about a factor of 6.
Of which hydro is the only one in existence, and it cannot replace much of anything because one cannot build or mine more rainfall.
Which ensures the death of the planet. But you'll be safely dead first, so you don't care.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 28 January 2019 at 12:42 PM
SAEP, you certainly know that the output of Hydro plants and NGPPs can be easily varied/increased during peak demand periods and/or during periods of low REs production. NGPPs are not as clean as Hydro but it coud be an acceptable filler to allow the use of more clean Wind/Solar energy without costly storage.
I wouldn't worry too much about lithium shortage because new higher performance batteries may not use lithium or a lot less of it.
Alternatively, fixed much lower cost higher performance batteries could reduce current storage cost by 10X or more by 2030/2050.
Posted by: HarveyD | 28 January 2019 at 03:54 PM
NGPPs are not a solution. On the time scale of a century they are WORSE than CPPs because of methane leakage.
Stop trying to kill the planet, Harvey. Maybe you don't give a damn for generations hence and the rest of the environment, but I do.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 28 January 2019 at 07:43 PM
As an interim measure, (until other affordable storage units are developed) pumped Hydro, using current large Hydro water reservoirs or new reservoirs on elevated grounds, could be used as cleans energy storage to allow full use of REs?
BEVs/Charging facilities equipped with reversible chargers could become a major storage media, as extended range EVs multiply, in the near future. With both REs and extended range vehicles increasing in the same time frame, pollution problems with CPPs and ICEVs could be solved at the same time without installing more NPPs or buying more HEVs and PHEVs?
Improved lower cost batteries, larger Wind turbines and multi-layer Solar panels are part of the solution.
Posted by: HarveyD | 30 January 2019 at 02:11 PM
Harvey, how many times do you have to be told (with math!) that the storage required by the unreliables (wind and solar) is nigh-impossible to build? Even if you had all of Lake Erie to use as a reservoir, you couldn't store enough energy with it to serve North America.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 30 January 2019 at 04:46 PM