Downtown Sackville has a new fast EV charger. The FLO brand charger which is connected to NB Power’s eCharge network went live on September 21 in the parking lot between the post office and Goya’s Pizza in downtown Sackville.
About 25 different EVs have successfully charge since then, says Corporate Services Director Kieran Miller. Unfortunately, roughly 25 other potential users were unable to connect to the charger. Miller says the project has “had a bit of bumpy start” with reported errors from some users, but the town is “working with FLO to get those issues resolved.”
“It’s a bit of a mix of people having an issue versus people being able to successfully charge,” says Miller. “It’s definitely new technology for us, so there’ll be some growing pains as we onboard it.” Miller says she hopes users will be patient, and inform the town if they encounter any issues.
People connecting to the charger will pay for their charge through the NB Power eCharge network, but the charger is owned by Tantramar, and so net revenue, after covering the cost of the power, will come to the town. Tantramar set the rate at $15 per hour of charging, the same rate used at other eCharge network chargers.
Miller says that usage data available to the town doesn’t show where drivers are coming from, but at least one of the potential users is a local EV owner who met with CHMA downtown to talk about the charger and his experience owning an EV.
Sackville resident Lucas Morneau has owned his EV since 2022, and unlike many EV owners, does not have his own home charger, instead relying on public charging networks including DC fast chargers like the one just installed downtown, and level 2 chargers like the one Sackville installed at the Visitor Information Centre (VIC) in 2014.
Unfortunately for Morneau, he is one of the potential users who has yet to connect successfully to the new charger, though he’s confident there will be a fix soon.
Morneau’s main concern when it comes to EV ownership is the size of the charging network, and whether or not it can keep up with the growing popularity of EVs. Numbers published recently by Statistics Canada show that new EV registrations in New Brunswick are tracking upwards. In the second quarter of 2023, New Brunswick registered 212 new battery electric cars, and 232 plug-in hybrids, for a total of 444 new EVs in just three months. That’s more than twice the number registered in the same period in 2022.
Since he bought his EV in February 2022, Morneau has mostly been using the single non-Tesla DC fast charger at the Big Stop in Aulac, which can charge his car in about an hour, and the town’s level 2 charger at the VIC, which could take up to 8 hours for a full recharge. (There’s also a bank of eight Tesla chargers in Aulac, but they can’t be used by non-Tesla EVs due to proprietary connectors used.) These days, he finds the VIC charger is almost always in use, and finds himself waiting to use the Aulac fast charger.
Lucas Morneau gets ready to scan a payment card at Sackville’s new DC fast charger. Photo: Erica Butler
“It’s great that we have a new charger in town,” says Morneau. “We can plug in here and charge within an hour, [and] there’s so many things you can do in downtown… But it’s definitely a little frustrating to say that there’s only the one, and the other level 2 is in constant use.”
Happily for Morneau, Sackville will soon see more chargers, with plans announced by NB Power to install 3 new DC fast chargers at the VIC by early winter, and a proposal from town staff to install two new level 2 chargers at the Dorchester Veterans Community Centre. And, Miller says that the town’s new electrical infrastructure downtown is ready for expansion, with room for two more level 3 chargers when the time comes.
“We did invest a lot up front so that we could easily add more chargers there,” says Miller. “It was all created so that we could roll out the program as different funding programs became available.” That extra capacity is apparent in the price tag for the downtown Sackville EV charger installation. The total project cost just shy of $177,000, but with grants from NB Power and the provincial government, Tantramar paid just over $72,000. That also included a new outdoor power source for events in the parking lot, which was christened during Fall Fair. (Though technical difficulties caused some delays on the Friday night of the fair, Active Living director Matt Pryde told CHMA the delay was unrelated to the new permanent power source.)
Level 2 chargers are considerably more affordable, with the proposed two chargers for the Dorchester Veterans Community Centre estimated to cost just under $17,000 installed, and half of that eligible for reimbursement under NB Power’s Plug-In NB program.
Lucas Morneau says that after one and a half years of owning and driving an EV, he has few complaints. “Every single person I’ve talked to who owns an electric vehicle absolutely loves it,” says Morneau. “I haven’t heard anything negative from people who own them.”
“I feel like we’re at a point where a lot of people are starting to make the switch,” says Morneau, “and we are going to need a lot more of these chargers around, not only in Sackville and Tantramar, but all over New Brunswick, all over Canada.”