City takes ‘modest’ step toward EVs

Opinion

The City of Brandon council is set to vote on a new electric vehicle charging station for city vehicles.

Four charging ports for future use at the A.R. McDiarmid Civic Complex could cost over $100,000, according to a request for proposals for contractors to install the charging stations.

The city is planning on buying electric vehicles to replace some of its aging fleet. Some of those vehicles will need to be purchased as early as next year. The charging stations would be built in preparation for the new light duty inspection vehicles.

The city’s director of planning and buildings, Ryan Nickel, said this is a good way for the city to test if it wants to expand its EV fleet.

“It’s a way to dip our toe in to see if this is kind of something we want to expand further in a fairly low risk place,” Nickel said on Friday.

“It kind of aligns nicely with our light duty inspection vehicles, because they go for short trips around town.

The request for proposal was sent out in August and closed at the start of September, is for four Level 2 chargers, which range between 3.3 and 19 kW of power. The request includes two stations, with two chargers per station.

Level 2 chargers are able to add up to 50 km of range per hour.

While the setup is only for four vehicles, the installation will be done with more power than necessary, so that the city can expand the chargers in the future. The expansion would be able to add an additional four chargers.

“One of the reasons why it is more expensive is kind of — the city does want to plan the circuit for future growth and expansion, instead of just for this opportunity only,” Nickel said.

The bids in the request for proposal came back at the lowest price of $108,452.10 from Jamieson-Judd Ltd. Two other bids were submitted as well, with a primary Jamieson-Judd Ltd. bid of $117,642.00 and a $115,500.00 bid from Blue Lake Construction and Consulting Engineers Corp.

The city is receiving $20,000 for the project from the provincial government, originally announced in April.

The rest of the money — if council awards a tender — would come from the city.

The city would spend slightly less than the advertised cost even with the provincial help, as the city doesn’t have to pay some of the tax. The bids are also unevaluated, and the prices can be altered by the city as well, depending on what the bids entail.

The bids came back to the city higher than expected, Nickel said, which is why council has to discuss and approve the authorization.

“It was never expected to be fully funded by the grant. It was always only going to be partially funded,” he said. “I think at the time we thought it would hopefully be 50-50.”

Nickel said moving to electric vehicles is part of the city’s climate change strategy, and is part of one of its goals.

“This was seen as a fairly low risk, first step that the city could potentially take to start transitioning in that way,” he said.

Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett said while the installation of the chargers and buying the EVs might be more expensive than staying with gas cars in the short term, it will save the city money in the long run.

The city’s current vehicles, he said, are used “all the time.” The future electric vehicles would be much of the same. The inspection vehicles also never leave the city, so turning electric makes sense for them, he said.

The plan for the chargers to be installed at the A.R. McDiarmid Civic Complex, is because it’s “low hanging fruit,” as that’s where the vehicles would be parked for regular use.

This is part of the city being an example for other municipalities, he said.

“A lot of people talk about green economy stuff, and this is just a small bit of leading by example, just on a very, very, very modest scale,” Fawcett said.

“It’s not something that is going to make a massive impact, but it is a step.”

» alambert@brandonsun.com