Ladner residents may have noticed a new electric vehicle charging station that was installed by the pickleball courts at Memorial Park last week.
Located down the street from several existing charging stations outside the Ladner library, the new station is part of a series of new installations by the City of Delta as it ramps up its public charging network.
The city, until the latest addition, owned and operated 30 public Level 2 charging stations at civic facilities
Twenty more will be installed this year, along with one DC fast charge station at the North Delta Recreation Centre.
It’s all part of Delta’s Electric Vehicle Strategy.
Meanwhile, council recently approved a licence agreement with BC Hydro for the use of nine parking stalls at the Sungod Recreation Centre for the installation of eight DC fast charge stations.
BC Hydro is expanding its network of fast charging stations throughout the province, currently owning and operating four stations at South Delta Recreation Centre.
The Metro Vancouver Board this year endorsed the regional district submitting several climate action resolutions to the Union of BC Municipalities including calling on the province for even more funding for EV charger deployment.
According to the regional district, it has identified that by 2035, up to 350,000 existing parking spots in multi-unit residential buildings in the region will be retrofitted to be EV charging ready, and 2,200-to-2,900 public DC fast charging ports and 32,000-to-47,000 public Level 2 ports will be needed to support anticipated demand for EV charging.
It will require significant capital investment in both public charging and multi-unit residential buildings retrofits totalling approximately $1.2 billion in Metro Vancouver alone by 2035.
A Metro report notes that reliable and widespread public charging infrastructure is crucial to, among other benefits, reassure prospective EV adopters that they will be able to charge on long-distance trips, provide charging for people without EV charging at home and provide charging for people with EV charging at home but whose daily trip surpasses their battery’s capacity.
