Build It And They Will Plug-In: Vancouver's First Plug-In Condo Tower
Vancouver real estate developer Concord Pacific announced today that it is developing Vancouver's first plug-in electric vehicle capable building. As the Vancouver Sun reported today, the Cosmo, which is scheduled to be completed in 2012, will have capacity for residents to plug-in and charge their electric vehicles. The planned 23-story building in downtown Vancouver, will have 220v plug-in capability in about 20% of the underground parking stalls at a cost of approximately $5,000 per.
As I previously blogged, the City of Vancouver is generating considerable buzz about its new fondness for electric vehicles and generally for the green agenda around the City. Concord Pacific's Cosmo, and hopefully there will be more like it, is simply the next step in building the massive infrastructure needed to support a city-wide network of electric cars. I commend Concord Pacific for their leadership on this green initiative. Perhaps the City of Vancouver will even offer incentives to developers who install a percentage of plug-in capable parking stalls in their buildings. This makes perfect sense to me, and it is a great way for the City to quickly build the electric car infrastructure at a low cost. City developers will undoubtedly be following this story.
Green buildings are the way of the future, with electric vehicle plug-in capability now forming part of the suite of green initiatives (along with geothermal heating, solar paneled windows, rainwater capture, etc, etc) available to developers. The possibility of electric cars is also incredible, especially now with our capability of generating electricity from a variety of renewable sources. If anywhere, with its natural endowment of renewable energy resources, British Columbia is particularly well suited for electric vehicles, but at what cost to BC Hydro's expensive investment in its demand side management (Power Smart) program. Electric vehicles sort of kill that initiative. Stay tuned. The book is still being written on BC's electric car story.
While planning and building to accomodate electric vehicles... We must make sure that we can generate enough elecricity to meet the increased demand.
Warren Brazier Reply: Agree completely. Conservation alone will not meet the demand on the grid posed by the impending electric car revolution. The good news is there are plenty of clean and renewable greneration resources in British Columbia to meet the demand. It's just a matter of getting that done. All in good time, if you ask me.