Thank you, Mr. Chair, for inviting us today to share our industry knowledge with the committee for the zero-emission vehicle study.
LeadingAhead Energy is a Canadian company operating in the electric vehicle charging infrastructure industry across Canada and recently in the United States. We believe in providing innovative solutions disturbing the industry status quo by providing advisories on industry best practices and by supporting open network solutions offering flexibility, future-proofing and market competition.
As a result, we have worked on multiple level two and level three charging infrastructure projects, providing and consulting on turnkey solutions and assisting with the entire process from government grant applications and project management to supplying and installing the charging equipment.
As you are engaging with all industry stakeholders, from our experience the significant lack of education on EVs in general is clear, from range anxiety to the knowledge of existing charging infrastructure and the misunderstanding of the EV life cycle, all of which contribute to the spread of misinformation. Further, EVs still come with a higher price tag today. Unfortunately, lending companies do not factor in the savings of EVs for financing.
Time for charging is also a major concern before buying an EV. Several utility companies and other private investors have done incredible work to deploy DCFC chargers from coast to coast. We consider this stage one of deployment, since the vast majority are only at a 50-kilowatt charging speed and are equipped with only one or two units on site. With longer-range batteries, one to two hours of fast charging is now required on the 50 kilowatts, assuming there's no lineup.
We are now on the second wave of DCFC deployment, bringing high-power charging ranging from 100 kilowatts to 350 kilowatts, with the capability of charging multiple vehicles at the same time at a faster rate, thereby reducing charging times for long-range EVs.
LeadingAhead Energy has been working on many charging infrastructure projects using open charge point protocols, or OCPP. We believe this is essential to create market competition and industry innovation, avoid stranded assets and reduce costs. There is also something to be said about the importance of flexibility and future-proofing of the equipment that is using government funding in the growing market, adding industry players instead of potentially creating monopolies.
Contrary to some beliefs, OCPP is not an inferior protocol, as we have experienced 100% uptime in our latest project. Following Europe's lead a few years ago, OCPP 1.6-J has been added as a requirement in the latest CleanBC public charging rebate program, which is an important step towards interoperability between charging stations and network providers, an initiative that other government programs should follow.
The clean fuel standard, or CFS, is definitely one of the most important and unknown pieces of legislation to help achieve the goal of reducing Canadian carbon emissions. LeadingAhead, like many others in the industry, is very supportive of the new CFS format allowing the generation of carbon credits from EV charging stations.
It will be important to ensure that the credits are being returned to the investors in the projects, and not the network providers as is written in its current format. This would help to incentivize investors—mostly real estate managers and utilities—to reinvest the proceeds in the further expansion of charging infrastructure. By having network providers receiving these credits, we are running a high risk of further creating a market monopoly by shifting the buying power from the investors’ hands into the network providers’ hands, as network providers typically do not invest in EV charging infrastructure projects.
LeadingAhead Energy is grateful to have had the opportunity to share its market knowledge with the committee. The benefits of electrifying Canada's transportation will come not only from electric vehicles but from those in the industry as a whole who support the entire life cycle of an EV, from resource extraction to recycling, repurposing, engineering, consulting and so on. There are tremendous numbers of opportunities in the electrification of transportation, and government regulations as well as incentives will be a major player in determining the success of Canada on the national and international fronts.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you for your attention.