Can Saint John Energy’s Grid Handle Everyone Switching to Electric Vehicles?

We have confidence in our grid today and that we will be able to accommodate rapid growth in EV demand.

Saint John Energy will be doing modelling EV demand on our system in 2023 to more specifically determine what the impact will be over time to accommodate the transition to Electric Vehicles (EVs).

From a very high level, an EV is comparable in power load to a hot water heater, so our system will be able to accommodate a significant initial deployment of EVs before we face system capacity issues that will require new investments.

A second major consideration for us is the impact on our peak energy consumption from NB Power, which is expensive both financially and environmentally. We expect that, in time, EVs will cause our peak to move to the evening as right now it is in the morning driven by people taking showers and starting their day.

The good news is that our Smart Grid system, which is built to respond to variations in our system, will serve us well in keeping demand charges low when a high volume of EVs are on our system each day.

We have confidence in our grid today and that we will be able to accommodate rapid growth in EV demand. Looking beyond the grid, what we all need to ask ourselves is ‘where will the electricity come from’ as forecasts suggest the need for electricity will more than double by 2050. That is a challenge and an opportunity economically for New Brunswick.