As Kingston aims to make the transition to net-zero vehicles, and to hit other green energy targets, there’s one problem the city faces: there isn’t enough electricity to do it.
Kingston has become a fast-growing city, according to the 2021 census.
The population is up seven per cent.
But as the population grows, so does the need for power, and with the city’s push to be ‘greener’ by moving toward zero-emission vehicles, even more electricity will be needed.
“Right now, we are starting to see some potential challenges about making sure we would have enough electricity for continued growth that we’re seeing in the city,” says Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson.
“That doesn’t even account for the fact that we are full-on invested in the conversion to electrification. Electric vehicles, electric buses, other sorts of conversions. We need to start working now to make sure we’ve got the electricity supply that we need on that.”
Utilities Kingston director of engineering Remi Adedapo says the problem lies not with how much power there is, but the capacity to distribute it.
“Kingston Hydro is a local distribution company, so what we do is take what we receive, and distribute it locally,” she says.
For example, if everyone in Kingston suddenly began plugging in electric vehicles to charge at home, it would be too much for distribution centres to handle.
“We try and generalize and look at what the demand is going to be like, and what are we going to use it for,” says Adedapo.
“The demand that we did use it for in previous years, would not have included electrical vehicles.”
Adedapo says there are short-term plans in place, such as stockpiling excess energy in storage batteries.
But for the long term, increasing the city’s capacity to distribute more electricity is a major priority.
“The plans in place would be to expand or build new transformation stations, for instance,” says Adedapo.
Time is of the essence in completing these kinds of upgrades, with bold emission reduction targets fuelling a move to greener power sources across the country.
If it wants to keep pace, Kingston will to need to charge ahead quickly before its green initiatives grow faster than the vines that can feed them.