Only as Clean as the Grid

Electric vehicles provide a great opportunity for drivers to get away from internal combustion engines (ICE) which burn gas and emit Green House Gasses (GHG), but the energy for EVs has to come from somewhere, so how clean is the power for an electric vehicle?

Driving an electric vehicle may seem to some like kicking a can down the road, just because a car isn’t burning gas doesn’t mean that the power at the charging station isn’t being generated by a GHG emitting source. To determine how green EVs are, power generation must be taken into consideration.

Canadian Grid

Starting off, Canada as a whole does a good job ensuring that our power comes from green renewable sources, according to the Government of Canada website, nrcan.gc.ca, in 2018 67% of electricity came from renewable sources and 82% from non-GHG emitting sources. The break full breakdown can be seen below:

Ontario Grid

Now looking specifically at Ontario, 58.9% of power comes from Nuclear, 24.9% comes from Hydro, 9.8% comes from Gas, 0.3% from Biofuel, and 0.3% from Solar. That means only around 10% of power generation in Ontario comes from a Green House Gas emitting source.

Chatham-Kent

Looking locally, Chatham-Kent has over 150 wind turbines and produces enough energy to power 135,000 Ontario homes. So that means if you decide to make the switch to an EV you can trust that if you are driving around Chatham, touring around Ontario, or taking a trip around Canada you will be reducing your Green House Gas emission and creating a most sustainable carbon footprint.

Thinking about making the switch? Let us know!

If you’d like to see Ontario’s current power generation check out this site: https://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html

Information on Canada’s power generation from: https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/science-data/data-analysis/energy-data-analysis/energy-facts/electricity-facts/20068

Information on Ontario’s power generation from: https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontario-energy-quarterly-electricity-q1-2020#section-1