Does Calgary have the power to charge a million electric vehicles? It's complicated

After an extreme cold snap put the province on the brink of blackouts last month, Alberta's emergency grid alerts underlined some of the challenges of energy transition.

In Alberta,electric vehicles (EVs) have been part of this complex discussion.

Advocates for e-powered vehicles including the federal government see them as a key aspect of global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Others are skeptical about the practicality of zero-emission vehicles and the cost of building all the infrastructure needed to support them.

Throw in some heated political rhetoric and you've got a lot of Canadian motorists with big questions about a net-zero future. Close to home, one of the bigger questions is what would happen if all of the vehicles in Calgary suddenly transitioned to electricity? Could the system handle it?

The third episode of This is Calgary, a new CBC podcast, set out to answer these questions. It turned to Blake Shaffer, associate professor at the University of Calgary and electricity market researcher, for his take on this tricky topic.

Before we hear from him, let's set the stage.

In March 2023, there were 9,338 pure electric vehicles registered in Alberta, according to the most up-to-date provincial government data. During that same period, Calgary was home to 1,020,752 registered vehicles of all types. That's a lot of vehicles. But Shaffer says we have the power to support the charging needs of a million EV motorists.

However, there's some nuance. Electricity grids are rarely simple, and this conversation isn't just about supply.

"It's showing the real challenge isn't so much the quantum of energy, the total amount, it's the timing of it," he told Anis Heydari, host of This is Calgary.

"Do we have that energy in our system when we want it?"

Suppose a typical vehicle drives roughly 15,000 kilometres every year, on average.

To compare an EV to the fuel economy of a gas-powered vehicle, one would need about 20 kilowatt hours to travel 100 km. So, an EV would need 3,000 kilowatt hours per year to travel that 15,000-km average.

If one million vehicles in Calgary were electric, this would equate to 3 terawatt hours of power usage per year, Shaffer said.

"All of Alberta uses about 85 terawatt hours in a year," said Shaffer. "So we're talking about a three, three-and-a-half per cent increase in total energy demand, and we're not getting to a million EVs until at least 2035 if that."

When it comes to infrastructure, considering the addition of a900-megawattnatural gas powerplant near Edson that's coming online soon, Shaffer says Alberta's grid would be well-equipped to support a million EVs in Calgary.

But the tricky part isn't really the amount of power it comes down to how that electricity is actually distributed throughout the day.

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He says the city's distribution system couldn't handle the pressure of a million vehicles being plugged in at the same time, as it stands.

Shaffer is running field experiments with Canadian utility companies like Enmax and FortisAlberta, to name a few, studying electricity supply and demand when it comes to EVs.

"We did a pilot with Enmax where we gave people what we call 'time-of-use pricing,' so a discount for your power [when used] in off-peak," said Shaffer.

"It was a pretty small discount, three cents [per kWh] off. We found that over 80 per cent of charging shifted to that overnight period."

He says this experiment showcases the flexibility of EVs and power usage, as folks were willing to shift their charging to off-peak hours when financially motivated.

But much like when gasoline goes on sale and Calgarians line up to refill their tanks, what happens when the incentive to save on electricity creates another peak charging period?

This does create a new peak demand, which is what he calls a "shadow peak" for overnight charging.

"Imagine a slice of bread and all the peanut butter is at one edge. What we want to do is smear that across," said Shaffer.

Right now, the city is replacing some transformers in certain Calgary neighbourhoods, which would build out their throughput capability, making more demand at one time an easier request to accommodate.

But Shaffer says that doing this to every transformer isn't an efficient solution.

"That's like upgrading Crowchild bridge there to 16 lanes so we can accommodate that rush hour," he said. "But what a waste of money, because most of the time you're not going to need 16 lanes."

And that's part of what he's testing now.

According to the Net-Zero Analysis of Alberta's Electricity Distribution System report prepared for the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC), there are a few options for what this transition to EVs could look like in practice.

Time-based incentives for energy consumption are part of the report's options, which is the aforementioned concept of discounted charging in less popular demand periods.

However, what Shaffer calls "managed charging," a concept that relies on utility companies controlling when users can charge their vehicles, is what he's most interested in.

"This is the idea where your car is connected to an app, you tell [it], 'I want to leave by 6 a.m. and I want to be 90 per cent charged' and we figure out when to charge you."

He says the managed charging strategy allows for more flexibility, and ultimately, costs less than upgrading every transformer, which is especially important for non-EV owners.

Not for everyone

The affordability issue has been the focus of much debate around making the switch to an all-electric fleet of vehicles.

One factor that's likely keeping the uptake on EVs lower than gas-powered vehicles right now is the immediate cost. EVs come at a relatively high price point.

Despite the high cost of entry, making the switch to electric meant more savings for local business owner Tyler Pubben the owner of two EVs who said he had been spending a fortune on fuel.

"With my previous gas powered pickup truck, I'd be filling up, you know, more than once a week, which adds up, you know?"

He keeps track of his power usage via a series of spreadsheets, and he says it costs him just over $3 per day to charge both of his electric vehicles.

He's on a fixed rate and also draws some power from solar energy at home, and puts about 30,000 kilometres on his electric truck annually.

But when it comes to getting more people on board with EVs, Pubben says it's not for everyone.

"It's more of a cultural thing. I think at this point the charging network in Alberta is actually surprisingly robust. I have not found any issues getting anywhere in Alberta with an electric vehicle," he said.

"If I were to be towing a trailer, the electric truck would not be for me. But I don't tow a trailer. I just haul things around. So it works for me."

LISTEN | How the city could cope with a million electric vehicles:

This is Calgary20:09Can Calgary charge one million electric vehicles at once? You might be shocked

What happens if everyone get an electric car - and everyone needs to charge it at once? We know the push is on to move Calgarians to electric vehicles. But we also know Alberta's electricity grid has struggled through recent weather. So get your calculators out because it's time to carry the ones and answer this once and for all with the help of energy economist Blake Shaffer.