Resume EV charging after a blackout
Help test a new feature for your charger
Hilo is requesting your assistance as a tester in order to improve the reliability and resiliency of Hydro-Québec’s power grid.
Your mission: Participate in a range of tests involving the resumption of electric vehicle charging after a power failure.
Why should I participate?
Your contribution is really important because it will allow us to prevent equipment breakdowns in your area.
In addition, to ensure the project’s success, we really need the help of a sufficient number of Hilo customers whose homes are connected to one of the three electrical substations we have selected.
What do I need to do?
All testing is automated, so there is nothing you need to do with regard to the charging of your electric vehicle.
By choosing to participate in the project, you agree that during a test, Hilo can transmit settings to your charger that will determine when your vehicle can continue recharging and at what power level.
Get up to $150 in bonuses!
To thank you for contributing to the pilot project, Hilo is offering compensation of up to $150, including:
- $50 at the end of April 2024;
- $75 at the end of April 2025;
- an additional $25 at the end of April 2025 if you answer all of our surveys.
When will the tests occur?
Test parameters
FAQs
When service is restored after an outage, the electrical equipment, devices and appliances that are plugged into outlets all start using electricity at the same time, causing demand to rise significantly. That’s especially true in winter, when heating and EV charging needs are high. Peaks can overload the system and trigger equipment failures and further outages.
Gradually resuming your electricity use reduces pressure on the grid and helps restore electricity service gradually to avoid another outage.
As part of the pilot project, EV charging gradually resumes after a waiting period. Then the charging power gradually increases to maximum level.
When electricity service is restored, Hilo may manage your charging station so it starts charging at a set time and power level.
The pilot project aims to test a charging station feature that gradually resumes EV charging after an outage.
No, the testers don’t receive any information about the settings that are sent to their charging station. At a later stage, we’ll consider sending notices since testers have expressed an interest in receiving them.
Note: The settings vary depending on the duration of the outage:
- The waiting period before starting a charging session can be up to two hours.
- It can take up to four hours to gradually resume EV charging at maximum power.
If the outage lasts less than 30 minutes, Hilo will not change your charging station’s settings.
No, not in this phase of the pilot project. However, several participants have asked for a tracking and visualization tool, which the project team considers to be an essential addition at a later stage.
No. One of the aims of the pilot project is to assess how EV drivers manage with the feature we’re testing without being able to change their charging station’s settings or interrupt the process while its underway.
What’s more, we don’t recommend disconnecting your charging station. Every disconnection is considered an outage, which automatically initiates the process to gradually restore EV service. If the process is already underway, it will resume from where it was interrupted.
No. The solution we’re testing as part of the pilot project does not distinguish between manually disconnecting the charging station and an outage. That feature will be added when developing a more advanced solution.
If you disconnect it for more than 30 minutes, the process to gradually restore charging will resume when your charging station is reconnected. Unfortunately, the solution we’re testing doesn’t yet distinguish between manually disconnecting the charging station and an outage.
EV drivers who own a portable charging station may be inconvenienced by this limitation every time they disconnect and reconnect their charging station, since the process is automatically initiated when the electrical connection is interrupted for more than 30 minutes.
An email asking you to complete a survey is automatically sent out when power is restored to your charging station after it was manually disconnected or an outage occurred on Hydro-Québec’s grid.
Note: We detected and corrected a glitch that generated notifications every time a charging station was disconnected from and subsequently reconnected to the Wi-Fi network. This in turn caused survey emails to be sent out erroneously.