Canadian EV owners earn cash by charging cars at home

Canadian electric vehicle owners are receiving payments for charging their cars at home through programs that aggregate clean energy data.

These programs allow companies to bundle the electricity used by individual households into large blocks to sell as compliance credits. Oil and gas companies must purchase these credits to meet carbon emissions targets set by the Canadian government under the Clean Fuel Regulations.

Greg Overmonds, vice-president of marketing for Swtch Energy, explains that the system works because electric vehicles displace the use of oil. While a single homeowner produces too few credits to be commercially viable for a large corporation, Swtch Energy pools thousands of residential driveways together. This aggregation allows the company to sell credits to major fossil fuel firms that need to purchase tens of thousands of units to satisfy federal mandates. Various companies offer different terms for these residential programs.

Grizzl-E provides rebates of up to 16 cents per kilowatt-hour using a tiered system for heavy users. Swtch reimburses members $300 after they use 1,500 kilowatt-hours and pays $100 for every additional block. Other providers like ChargeLab offer quarterly payments with no minimum, while Pion Power allows users to schedule charging during off-peak hours. The financial impact for drivers is notable.

One owner in Brighton, Ontario, pays 3.9 cents per kilowatt-hour to charge his vehicles overnight and receives 11 cents per kilowatt-hour back from Swtch. He expects to earn about $400 annually by driving 20,000 kilometres a year. The system prioritizes clean energy sources like hydro, solar, and wind, as credits generated from these sources are worth more than those from fossil fuel production.