Electric circuit: Charging station prices may go up significantly

Owners of electric cars will soon have to pay more to use the electric circuit’s public charging stations.

Hydro-Quebec Company, which is responsible for maintaining a network of approximately 3,500 charging stations in the province, has just adopted the new tariff structure, which now allows charging fees to change twice a year, from the bottom up.

At the discretion of the owners

Thus, today, 1^er In June, owners of approximately 2,800 level 2 terminals (standard or 7 kW) in Quebec (municipalities, businesses, hotels, etc.) could charge a session charge of up to $ 3 per hour (including taxes) or a $ 10 flat rate regardless of the duration of the charge.

Hydro-Quebec denies opening the door to rate hikes. She emphasized that the decision on whether or not to increase rates belonged to her “partners”, public or private owners of three-quarters of the charging stations in the province.

“In some cases the rate may go up, in others it may go down and it may even be free for partners who want to provide this service, which is unprecedented,” explained its spokesman Jonathan Cote.

Charging rates have not changed since 2016. So far its hourly rate is $ 1 per hour (including taxes), but its flat rate is limited to $ 2.50.

Multiply by three or four

So we are talking about the possibility of triple the current hourly rate with the new structure and change the flat rate to four times higher than the current one.

By comparison, in Ontario, the current rate is $ 2 per hour (including taxes) and the flat rate is $ 4.

Nevertheless, Hydro-Quebec argues that such a rate change is necessary to ensure the stability of the network and increase the number of charging stations.

Reviewed twice a year

From now on, standard terminals will be able to see their prices change twice a year, on a fixed date, the 1^er June and 1^er December.

In accordance with the regulation approved by Quebec, charging rates for fast terminals (24 to more than 100 kW) are indicated at the beginning of the year, once a year.

The last indexing is from last February.