It’s a bit like squaring the circle. The Laval manufacturer of an intelligent charging solution for RVE electric vehicles receives $7 million from Investissement Québec, Fondaction and Exportation et développement Canada (EDC), to help it “clear” during peak hours up to 4000 megawatts of electricity consumption.
A power of 4,000 megawatts is almost three times the peak power of the entire Romaine hydroelectric complex, the last power station of which was recently inaugurated by Prime Minister François Legault. The main particularity of RVE technology is that it should also facilitate the installation of charging stations in multi-unit buildings, where it is currently difficult to make the link between a parking space and the accommodation or co-ownership of its owner. assigned user.
Marie-Pier Corbeil and her brother David founded RVE in 2015 with another idea in mind: helping homes whose electrical entrance is already fully used to automatically alternate between electricity-intensive household appliances — such as a clothes dryer — and a charging station for electric vehicles.
This concept has since evolved to include smart charging on a larger scale. Since it is possible to control when charging takes place, why not take the opportunity to move it — when conditions permit — to times of day or night when the electricity network is less busy?
“Quebec is reviewing its energy strategy. What RVE can do to help is to “erase” up to 4,000 megawatts from its energy consumption balance,” calculates David Corbeil.
Quebec is in the process of reviewing its energy strategy. What RVE can do to help is enable it to “erase” up to 4,000 megawatts from its energy consumption balance sheet.
To reach this conclusion, David Corbeil calculates that, already from 2030, there should be two million electric vehicles on the roads of the province, and that at least 40% of them will need a system of refill like the one his company makes.
From there, it will be enough to find for each of these vehicles a time during the day when it will be optimal to recharge. Energy production is not exactly equivalent to consumption — to meet daily peaks in demand, Hydro-Québec must produce excess electricity at other times of the day. RVE says it can use this lost capacity to somehow eliminate the consumption added by some of the new electric vehicles sold in Quebec.
It’s energy sobriety carried out without forcing, summarizes David Corbeil. “It’s a simple way to avoid a form of energy waste,” he concludes.
In symbiosis with the Quebec strategy
In its Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy updated at the beginning of September, Quebec calculated that 40% of light electric vehicles that will hit the road in Quebec in the coming years will belong to people living in housing or a condominium. Helping them connect at home is a crucial tool to ensure transport electrification and decarbonization targets are met.
This goes a little further, since RVE will be able, thanks to this new financing, to more easily export its technology to American states where the demand for electric vehicles is strong, such as New York and California. RVE — which currently has 2,000 of its approximately 30,000 systems installed in the United States — hopes that half of its revenue will come from the United States within three years.
This is an example of positive development for Quebec brought about by the global electric shift in transport, believes the Minister for the Economy, Christopher Skeete. Regional sourcing targets contained in the new Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) will create a relocation of parts manufacturing to North America worth US$45 billion, he calculates .
Manufacturers will also want parts produced with low carbon emissions, such as batteries produced in the province. “And a battery represents 40% of the manufacturing of electric vehicles,” he said in an interview with Duty. Quebec can become a leader in batteries and electrical storage management. »