Electric vehicle charging network grows across B.C.

Todd Penney, who owns Dalex Auto Services in Fort Nelson, B.C., said he got his first call from a driver who was searching for a way to charge an electric vehicle (EV) around six years ago. 

At the time, there were no charging stations in his northeastern B.C. community. Instead, it took "a little bit of ingenuity" from a local electrician to figure out that his welding plug could be the solution.

"He felt kind of lost," Penney recalled. "He didn't have enough power to go back and he didn't have enough to go forward, so he was pretty elated once we were able to get him charged up." 

His auto shop quickly became a destination for EV owners travelling through the region who were in need of a charge.

"As an advocate for tourism in the Northern Rockies, I had no issue, whatever it took to get people to come to the area, really, so I was happy to charge them up," said Penney, who also previously served as a councillor for the regional municipality. 

But since then, the province has expanded its offering of EV charging areas, including recently installing one in Fort Nelson as well as other northern and Vancouver Island communities. 

In a press release from earlier this month, the province says it has completed building the "Electric Highway," a network of 155 charging sites and more than 310 fast chargers that are located around 150 kilometres apart along all major roadways in B.C. This effort is part of its climate action plan, CleanBC.

All of these facilities will be in service before the end of the month, according to the province. 

"It's pretty neat," Penney said. "It looks like they've strategically located them so there should be no issues with travelling up and down the Alaska Highway now, at least from the B.C. portion, with an electric vehicle."

The province says it aims to have 10,000 public charging stations by 2030 – almost doubling the existing number as of last month.

Doug Beckett, founder of the Prince George Electric Vehicle Association, called the development exciting. He said he started driving EVs in 2009 when there were no public charging stations.

"To have the whole province providing the ability to fuel up your electric vehicle about every 150 kilometres distributed through the entire province is wonderful," he said. "It's quite a change."

He added that both EVs and their charging stations are getting better. For instance, the province says that early next year, B.C. Hydro will start introducing 400-kilowatt stations that are capable of offering 100 kilometres of charge in just two to three minutes.