The YMCA is about empowering positive social and personal change. Health and fitness programs help members shape healthy bodies. Newcomer programs allow individuals to feel safe and find their way in a new environment. Child Care programs empower parents to find jobs and provide for their families. Soon the YMCA will help physically power change on Toronto’s east end. Teaming up with Opus One Energy to introduce charging stations for electric vehicles, the YMCA aims to encourage residents to consider a more renewable mode of transportation, and provide the city with the necessary research that will accommodate the technicalities of such infrastructure.Opus One’s vision is an energy efficient, intelligent and connected grid. Their mission is to provide a clean source of energy to reduce the carbon footprint of transportation with electric vehicles. The Opus One team met the green team of YMCA while attending at a Rethink Sustainability: Initiative Insight Exchange conference in the summer of 2013. The Cooper Koo Family YMCA construction provided the perfect technology demonstration platform to both improve the Toronto electricity grid, but to also help bring more popularity to plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) by helping solve range anxiety. The collaboration will include the construction of 6x AC Level 2 (240V) electric vehicle charging station, 1x Level 3 DC Fast Charger (the first-ever in Toronto), a grid-scale lithium ion battery system, a top-of-the-line photovoltaic solar panel which will be placed on the Cooper Koo Cherry Street Y Green Roof, and an advanced inverter which will communicate with Opus One’s GridOS allowing situational awareness, optimization and automation controls. AC Level 2 chargers are capable of charging a standard P.E.V. in a few hours depending on the requirements of the vehicle, and work faster than the typical AC Level 1 chargers that most P.E.V. owners use at home. The Level 3 DC Fast Charger reduces the charge to just a fraction of the time the Level 2 Charger requires, a useful upgrade that will make long distance travel more practical for P.E.V owners.
Electric vehicles have been gradually making progress in the recent years of North America. Growing consumer concerns on increasing air pollution, carbon emissions and the limited nature of fossil fuels are playing a significant role. According to Green Energy Futures more than 11,000 plug-in electric vehicles have been sold in Canada since 2011. Over 70% of which include the Chevy Volt, the Nissan Leaf, and the Tesla Model S. By the end of 2014, plug-in electric vehicles represented approximately .27% of total vehicle market share in Canada. This number is roughly half of the penetration for new cars sold in the United States. Interestingly, in hopes of boosting this number, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has recently removed all Tesla vehicle patents “in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology.” Canada’s market presence has grown by approximately 10 times what it was in 2011, but there are still strong barriers preventing electric vehicles from catching up to it’s gasoline fueled competition. These includes a domino effect that begins with a lack of consumer understanding of the total cost of ownership of PEVs; leading to a lack of immediate demand; in turn hindering the investment in fueling the infrastructure of charging stations; and a lack of fueling infrastructure results in consumer concern about practically owning a vehicle that can not be readily charged. Because PEVs have a limited distance they can travel on a charge, range anxiety describes the concern of running out of electricity before being able to reach a charge station, rendering the driver stranded.
The partnership allows YMCA to work towards part of its strategic plan for a Canada with vibrant, safe communities and a sustainable environment. The charging stations of course allow for PEV owners to charge up their vehicles while they are away from their house and in the city, helping to reduce range anxiety. It also allows for visibility, communication, and algorithms that will improve the management of electricity in Toronto. Better technology and energy management means more visibility and less risk to investing in charging infrastructure. An efficient grid means cleaner energy, which is important if PEVs are to be considered more environmentally friendly than the internal combustion engine. The grid-scale batteries themselves also provide a backup storage of energy, which can be charged up intermittently by solar energy, or in times outside of peak demand. In the case of an emergency loss of power, they can provide the resiliency of backup power to a building, or charge a car allowing someone to make it to safely outside of the blacked out area.
Installations and integration began in March and will continue until the end of May, in preparation for the PanAm games. In the mean time, commuters can find more charging stations for electronic vehicles at plugndrive.ca/public-charger-map
Sources:
http://www.opusonesolutions.com/
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/uploads/publication/afv_fueling_infrastructure_deployment_barriers.pdf
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jackperkowski/2014/12/12/electric-cars-a-review-of-2014/2/
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_infrastructure.html
http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/electric-vehicle-canada-update
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ah8gcGMaITi4dHdoZzJYdHFvZldnZkRCRWxGbjhicEE&usp=sharing#gid=25
http://www.teslamotors.com/en_CA/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you
http://www.rethinksustainability.ca/media-centre/
