Electric vehicle charging in Quebec | Towards billing by kilowatt hour rather than duration on public terminals

(Quebec) The Quebec government wants to allow users of public fast charging stations for electric vehicles to be billed on the quantity of electricity consumed.

Currently, customers are billed based on the duration of the recharge.

The government has observed that in North America, the industry is now moving towards kilowatt-hour pricing, which allows for a more transparent, equitable and predictable measurement of the cost of fast charging. Hydro-Québec and its Electric Circuit network are part of this movement.

To implement its new measure, the government is proposing to amend the Regulation respecting rates for the use of the public fast charging service for electric vehicles.

In May 2019, the government set the first hourly rate applicable to the use of a fast charging station with a power of 50 kilowatts (kW). Two and a half years later, this regulation was amended in order to set, among other things, hourly rates applicable to the use of a fast charging station, which vary depending on the power of the terminal used.

Last June, another modification proposed new hourly rates applicable to the use of a fast charging station with a power greater than 100 kW.