Hydro-Québec wants to use your electric cars to cope with winter peaks and outages, using the energy stored in the batteries which are connected in front of the houses.
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“There is a storage capacity that is extraordinary, when you are going to have 1.2 million electric vehicles in Quebec. It’s going to look like the James Bay reservoir,” the vice‐president for energy planning at Hydro, Dave Rhéaume, recently said in an interview with our Parliamentary Office.
Photo Agence QMI, JOEL LEMAY
Customers will be compensated if Hydro uses the connected batteries.
Theoretically, one million electric vehicles could provide 7,000 MW of peak power, or more than four times the installed power of the Romaine complex, explains the organization.
It will be a big collective battery, admits the vice-president.
“It’s a huge reservoir that will be controllable to manage the electricity network,” he said.
Remember that the Legault government was “taken by surprise” by the electricity shortage that Quebec is about to experience in the coming years.
Thus, electric car batteries could be used as a means of storage in order to better manage electricity demand and optimize the use of the electricity network.
“With an F150 Lightning truck. Let’s say that [nous sommes] capable of erasing a kilowatt or even throwing it into the network, that saves me from adding a kilowatt to James Bay or the North Shore. It saves me a kilowatt of transport over 1,500 kilometers across Quebec, as well as a kilowatt in the stations, then a kilowatt in the distribution network in your street,” explained Mr. Rhéaume.
- Listen to the interview with Pierre-Olivier Pineau, full professor in the Department of Decision Sciences and holder of the Chair of Energy Sector Management at the microphone of Alexandre Dubé via QUB :
Self-sufficiency
Although the technologies exist, bi-directional and intelligent terminals are not yet commonplace.
For the moment, Hydro-Québec is not using it to manage demand. However, within five years, the state-owned company hopes to be able to feed there.
“We will be able to manage it remotely,” said the vice-president.
Thanks to these terminals, electricity can even be redistributed inside the house and run the toaster or help during long power outages like the one on April 4.
Manage the peak
In the short term, the rapid growth in the number of vehicles is a challenge, notes the state-owned company.
Without a connection connected to the network, they will perhaps triple or even quadruple the energy needs during peaks, for example in the evening, when everyone recharges their car on returning from work, turns up the heating, turns on the oven and runs children’s baths.
However, the objective is to reverse the trend. With connected terminals, Hydro-Québec will be able to manage demand. In the last Girard budget, the Quebec government confirmed the $600 subsidy for the purchase of a charging station. However, to obtain the sums, the terminal must be minimally connected (intelligent).
“What we are going to do by integrating the batteries of electric cars is that we are going to give them a signal to say, you can charge earlier, now, because I am going to need it in two hours,” said explained Dave Rhéaume.
Batteries can play a crucial role, he says, in managing electricity demand, including storing energy when it’s plentiful and releasing it when demand is high.
Power your own home?
- The average capacity of an automobile battery: 60 kWh
- Autonomy: 2 days of powering a house
Price: Around $26
Bidirectional charging
- Average acquisition cost: $5000
- Roulez vert grant: $600
*The electric vehicle must be compatible