The pace of change in buildings and building design has been rapid over the past decade, and the changes are likely to be more dramatic in the near future. It is difficult to judge which ideas and technologies will take hold and become commonplace, and that makes choices right now a delicate guessing game.

We want Canada’s Greenest Home to be “future-ready” even if we are unable to accurately predict that future. Self reliance for water, sewage and power are essential ingredients in future readiness. But how about transportation? We’ve already chosen to build the home in a location that makes it easy for occupants to walk and cycle to all major services in town. But what about driving? As much as we’d like to see a future much less reliant on the personal automobile, it also seems likely that the car will be with us for some time to come.

To make it easier for the occupants of Canada’s Greenest Home to leave fossil fuels behind, we’ve decided to install an electric vehicle (EV) charging station on the home, in close proximity to the driveway. The Schneider EV230WSR outdoor charging station is an affordable and high-quality option for home electric vehicle charging. This unit will allow an EV owner to quickly and efficiently re-charge the vehicle in the driveway, using solar energy created on the roof of the home. This may help make the transition away from fossil-fuel transportation more practical and feasible.

The debate about the future of the EV may be far from decided, but while it seems like a reasonable possibility that EVs will be part of the transportation network in the decades to come it seemed worthwhile to build the technology into Canada’s Greenest Home.

***POST UPDATE: After installing this EV charger in 2012, we bought an EV in 2018 and were very glad to have the charger already in place and functional!

Nissan Leaf being charged at Canadas Greenest Home