Four more Norfolk facilities to get charged up

Electric vehicle charging will be installed at four county facilities in 2025.

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Parking areas at the Delhi Arena, Port Dover Arena, Langton Arena and Port Rowan Community Center will be equipped with four stations each thanks in large part to the province’s EVChargeON Program, which covers 75 per cent – ​​$120,000 – of the $160,000 project.

Council agreed at a recent meeting to draw $40,000 from the levy capital plan in 2025 – a year earlier than originally planned – to take care of the remaining costs.

In October 2023, the provincial government called for applications to the program after pledging $63 million to develop publicly accessible charging stations in communities with populations under 170,000.

“Advancing this timeline to 2025 will ensure compliance with the funding requirements and allow the county to move forward with this initiative,” said Sydney Clarysse, project lead for energy and facilities at Norfolk County.

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The stations will include Level 2 chargers, the same ones that sit at the county administration building in Simcoe. These models, Clarysse noted, can provide a sufficient charge to most vehicles within one to two hours. Users will pay $2.15 per hour, which goes into county coffers.

“This project will allow the county to get ahead of the anticipated growing demand for charging infrastructure at county facilities,” Clarysse said.

Staff proposals for three other locations; the Waterford Tricenturena, Talbot Gardens Arena, and the Simcoe Recreation Centre/Annaleise Carr Aquatic Centre, were unsuccessful.

Each proposed location was chosen to allow users to keep busy while their vehicles were plugged in.

“We put them in locations where individuals could still walk to – in Delhi for instance – Quance Dam or the trails and possibly downtown – but if they’re watching a hockey game, they have a couple of hours to charge their vehicle,” Clarysse added.

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Norfolk staff will now begin the tender process in hopes of installation beginning in the spring, and the chargers will be functional before the winter of 2025/26.

A staff report noted that the number of EVs used in Canada has grown substantially in recent years – they now account for approximately 13.7 per cent of light duty vehicle sales in the country.

According to Statistics Canada, the second quarter of 2024 saw 65,733 new zero-emission vehicles registered, 12.9 per cent of all new motor vehicle registrations. That’s a 37.9 percent increase from the same period last year.

Clarysse assured council the chargers will be available for all types of EVs once installed, keeping with federal standards.

“Natural Resources Canada mandated charging ports last year,” she began. “So, all vehicles would be equipped to charge with any universal charging port.”

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