Automotive News Canada - May 2023 - 12

12
* MAY 2023
Rollouts grow more
sophisticated as owners
of residential buildings
brace for an EV 'tsunami'
By DAVID KENNEDY
T ORONTO BUREAU CHIEF
ACCELERATING ELECTRIC-VEHICLE
adoption, a strengthening business case and
government cash are encouraging the wider
rollout of EV chargers in multi-unit residential
buildings (MURBs). As a result, innovators
are introducing specialized
technology to get parking
garages up to speed.
Once focused on other
green building projects such
as LED retrofits and heating
and ventilation upgrades,
Toronto-based EnerSavings Inc. began
installing chargers in MURBs in British
Columbia four years ago. It's now offering
turnkey charging services coast to coast and
preparing for a surge in demand as building
owners and tenants make the EV transition.
" The tsunami is on its way, " EnerSavings
CEO Kevin Lisso told Automotive News
Canada.
Garage-based
chargers get
a jump-start
from tech
Charger installations
account for about 10 per
cent of the company's
revenue today, but that's
expected to increase to 40
per cent by 2025.
EV READINESS
SPOTLIGHT
The company, which
employs about 130 people,
offers end-to-end service,
Lisso said. The process
begins with an energy
audit to
determine
how much
electricity
a building
has available
for
EV chargers, then runs
through design and installation.
NO
MORE SLAP-AND-ZAP
While " slapping " a
charger on the wall beside
a parking space and running
power from the
building's electrical room
was a common way to give
tenants access to a charger
in the early days of
EVs, Lisso said, the market
has become far more
sophisticated.
On the typical
MURB project today,
EnerSavings roughs in
the infrastructure for 24
chargers, but only installs
as many as the building
needs in the short term.
This allows for expansion
without overspending.
The electrical infrastructure
is then fed into
a central hub, where it's
connected to the building's
electrical system
through an energy-management
system. The system
keeps tabs on electricity
requirements throughout
the building, limiting
power to EV chargers
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Swtch Energy Inc. uses cloud-based software to adjust
the energy flowing to EV chargers. That allows residential
buildings to balance other energy requirements.
SUPPLIED PHOTO
during times of high use and
dialing up the output to chargers
when
other systems
are idle.
" It talks
Lisso: Better
technology is
a big reason
for the rise
in charger
installations
in multi-unit
residential
buildings, but
government
incentives
also help.
SUPPLIED
PHOTO
directly to that
condo building.
It knows
where the
power is...
and it knows
whether it's
active or it's
not active, "
Lisso said.
Using this
approach,
building owners
can make
the most of
their current
electrical infrastructure
without
costly retrofits,
which
can run into
the hundreds of thousands of
dollars if the building needs
upgrading to pull more power
from the grid, he said.
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SC 13120
The precise size of the MURB
charging market is difficult to
measure. But according to the
latest census, about 29 per cent
of Canadian families live in
apartments or condos, a figure
expected to climb as cities grow
denser.
LOCATION, LOCATION, CHARGER
The Toronto-based charging
technology company Swtch
Energy Inc. is also among the
innovators helping older buildings
adapt to the EV era. Swtch
is seeing demand balloon as
more EVs hit the street and
building codes begin requiring
roughed-in electrical infrastructure,
CEO Carter Li said.
" The business model is getting
more and more clear for
real estate developers, " Li said.
" If you have EV charging, then
you can inherently charge a few
more dollars per square foot. "
Since its founding in 2016,
Swtch has focused primarily
on software. Its cloud-based
platform monitors the electrical
draw of charging stations,
letting EV or building owners
delay charging until the overnight
hours when more power
is available.
The company, which employs
about 60 people in offices in
Toronto, New York and Boston,
manages more than 10,000 chargers
in MURBs in Canada and
the United States.
Realizing the " limitations
to just pure software, " Swtch
on April 3 announced that it
was branching out a " hardware-light "
energy-management
system, Li said.
As with other such systems,
the tool, called Swtch Control,
monitors electricity consumption
in real time and adjusts
the amount of energy that EV
chargers pull from electrical
panels. The company had
already installed the system in
about 20 MURBs ahead of the
official launch, Li said.
SIMPLER, CHEAPER RETROFITS
Managing electricity loads
is not new, he said, but Swtch's
blending of inexpensive hardware
with software that can
respond to load changes in real
time will enable MURBs to simplify
retrofits, paring costs by
as much as 80 per cent.
For the average rental apartment
in Canada, installing
two charging stations often
requires a
new electrical
panel, which
can easily cost
more than
$10,000, Li
said. Swtch's
hardware
costs several
hundred dollars,
a price
baked into the
company's
wider software
services
fee.
Li: Upgrading
a panel can
cost more
than $10,000.
Swtch's
hardware,
which
manages
energy
loads, costs
just several
hundred
dollars.
FILE PHOTO
More
sophisticated
technology is
one contributor
to the
increase in
MURB charger
installations,
said
EnerSavings' Lisso, but government
incentives also play
a role.
The Zero Emission Vehicle
Infrastructure Program
(ZEVIP), which covers up to 50
per cent of costs, is the key initiative
for MURBs because it
backs smaller-scale projects, he
said. Initially launched in 2019,
ZEVIP received a $400 million
commitment in the federal government's
2022 budget to keep
the program running until
2027.
Unlike last year, the federal
government's latest financial
plan, tabled March 28, included
no new commitments to EV
infrastructure. - ANC
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Automotive News Canada - May 2023

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