Electric Vehicle Infrastructure

The BCIT Smart Microgrid Applied Research Team was involved in a research project to investigate efficient ways to retrofit existing Multi-Unit Residential Buildings (MURBs), strata and rental apartments in the Greater Vancouver area with electric vehicle charging stations. The goal of the project was to provide demonstration sites that showed how to develop a scalable plan for installing EV chargers in existing MURBs.

For the selected MURBs, BCIT and their electrical engineers:

• reviewed the building’s electrical capacity for adding EV chargers,
• developed the best plan for the building to install EV chargers, with the goal of installing chargers for parking stalls and providing the plan to the Strata Council or apartment building owner,
• using the engineered plan, purchased and installed the first 6 EV chargers.

News Stories

• On The Coast with Gloria Macarenko – What to consider when putting in an EV charger  (On the Coast CBC, August 3, 2022)
• Ask an Expert: Retrofitting residential buildings for EV chargers (Global Morning News, July 31, 2022)
• BCIT research could help Burnaby apartment buildings become EV-ready  (Burnaby Beacon, July 26, 2022)
• BCIT researchers develop blueprint to retrofit EV chargers into multi-unit residential buildings (BCIT News, June 20, 2022)

Presentations from Feb 2022 Project Workshop:

• Workshop Session 1: Overview of EV Charging Challenges in MURBs
• Workshop Session 2: What is an EVEMS, and How Can it Help?
• Workshop Session 3: MURB Demonstrations
• Workshop Session 4: Utility Demand Response
• Workshop Session 5: Roaming

Project Reports

• EV Charging Infrastructure Requirements for New Developments: Guidelines for Municipalities
• EV Charging Demonstrations in MURBS, and Guidelines for MURB Owners and Developers
• Roaming Guidelines for EV Charging
• EV Charging Guidelines for Electric Utilities

Project Downloads

• The Project Download Page provides links to download the OCPP source code, February 2022 Knowledge Dissemination Workshop slides, and project related reports.

Related Publications

• Research paper on Electric Vehicle Energy Management Systems (EVEMS) written for CSA Group by BCIT

To help educate people on EV etiquette including when to charge, the BCIT Smart Microgrid Applied Research Team (SMART) teamed up with three BCIT Digital Design and Development students, Tasha Vithaya, Emily Kwok-Choon, and Ashlynn Chen, to design and produce three short animated videos to help illustrate the proper way of good etiquette when charging an electric vehicle. SMART student researcher Maria Bushmin presented two workshops to the BCIT community on EV (EV 101 and EV 102) and from her development and research on these workshops and in consultation with BCIT EV expert Kelly Carmichael and social science researcher Joey Dabell, the three personas were developed.

The EV Etiquette videos and project have been featured in BCIT News. In addition:

• BCIT Dean Applied Research Kim Dotto spoke about the EV Etiquette project on Business in Vancouver’s Technology podcast, and
• Tesla Canada has picked up the videos also: Don’t be an Ian Icer, Olivia Overstayer, or Peter Perker – BCIT creates EV etiquette videos to help educate drivers.

The videos: Meet our three drivers who need a refresher on their EV etiquette

• Olivia Overstayer drives an EV and takes too much time charging her vehicle, preventing other EV drivers from getting a chance to charge.
• Ian Icer drives an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) car and parks in spots designated for EV charging.
• Peter Perker is an EV driver who thinks the charging station is used for VIP parking.

This initiative:

• Demonstrated curbside and parking lot charging stations that use existing street lighting infrastructure.
• Studied and recommended mitigations to aggregate load and power quality issues for collections of charging stations in multi-unit residential buildings (MURB) installations.
• Demonstrated interoperability of EV chargers from different vendors using open, non-proprietary communications protocols.
• Made recommendations to codes and standards bodies such as CSA, Canadian Electric Code, Technical Safety BC, on smart EV charging solutions.
• Created a “blueprint” for Canadian municipalities to follow to leverage streetlight infrastructure to provision Level 2 EV charging in otherwise challenging locations.
• Project Announcement (February 23, 2018)
  • Announcement backgrounder [PDF]
  • BCIT Photo album from the announcement
• Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) Electric Vehicle Infrastructure project page
• Project Download Page provides links to download the OCPP source code, February 2022 Knowledge Dissemination Workshop slides, and project related reports.

For further information, please contact the Project Leader.