Cold Lake, AB – The City of Cold Lake’s electric vehicle chargers saw steady use after a few early bumps in the road relating to connectivity. The high cost of energy, however, means that the City would need to charge as much as six times more than it currently does to recover the cost of operating the chargers.

“The City of Cold Lake installed two chargers as an initial step towards supporting electric vehicles, as well as provincial and federal emission reductions and sustainability goals,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “It is good to see that they were being used, but with initial numbers showing that the operations result in a large subsidy for EV users, we are unsure if the chargers are financially sustainable, given the electricity costs and the transmission and distribution fees we are seeing.”

The City of Cold Lake charges 50 cents per minute of charge time, which is toward the higher end of the rates charges for EV charging in northern Alberta. It also receives a special electricity rate designed for EV charging stations and to incentivize the use of electric vehicles. Yet the operation of the chargers ended up with a $6,818 loss after a short six months and limited use, largely due to the distribution and transmission charges.

The largest loss came in September, which realized $481 in revenue with $2,926 in total energy costs at the chargers.

Both chargers combined saw 214 users over the course of their first six months of operations. The initial six months did see some operational down time due to various technical issues, which were all resolved by July of 2024. Total sales in the first six months were $3,065, resulting in $2,461 in revenue for the City of Cold Lake. The total energy costs for the power sold, however, was $9,279.

A meeting with ATCO Electric resulted in the City being notified that it would receive a $3,815 credit due to billing issues associated with misidentified rate structures, however, it is unclear how the credit applies to the invoices received for the City’s electrical use and associated transmission and distribution charges. If this credit is applied to the electric vehicle chargers account, then the six-month loss would be reduced to $3,003.

“This does not seem to be an issue that can be resolved by scale, since it appears as though we are essentially selling something for less than it is worth, and so increasing sales would simply magnify the losses suffered,” Chief Administrative Officer Kevin Nagoya said. “Also, there is a question as to whether upgrades will be required to the grid as more electric vehicles are adopted. If so, the cost of these upgrades will be reflected in the electricity distribution costs, which is the vast majority of what makes up our expenses from the chargers. Currently, there does not seem to be a way of delivering this service within an acceptable price range. Our prices would have to more than double, and that would not begin to touch the capital costs of the units themselves.”

The City of Cold Lake’s electric vehicle chargers are currently metered under a special EV charging station rate structure similar to others around the province. The City was informed by ATCO Electric that connecting the charging stations directly to adjacent facilities would blend the distribution and transmission fees with those facilities and potentially reduce some of these fees.

The City’s administration, however, noted that if the chargers are not independently serviced, distribution charges would be lumped and blended in with those charged to another facility, and the true cost of operating the chargers would be much more difficult to establish, even with submeters, as these fees are variable and increase depending on the use and load of the electricity. It was further advised that the cost of electricity itself would also increase as the facility could not benefit from the special rates for EV’s, and so a higher rate would be charged.

“The math is not quite working, and we’ll have to make a decision on whether to continue if this is the case,” Copeland said. “Our administration will continue to look into other municipalities’ experiences as we can’t be the only municipality to see this trend. This is all very new to us, and so that’s why we started small with the two chargers that were purchased using federal grants. It’s a chance for us to learn, iron out some wrinkles, and see how far down this road we can go.”

- 30 -