PEI's EV Chargers Sit Installed but Dark, 18 Months Behind Schedule

Some of Prince Edward Island's newest fast chargers have been standing ready for a year and a half — installed, wired, and still not switched on. The Eastern Graphic reports that the province's 27-site high-speed charging rollout is now roughly 18 months behind schedule, leaving site hosts to explain to EV drivers why hardware that looks finished refuses to work.

Kyle Panton, owner of Cooper's Red & White in Belfast, has been told the charger next to his grocery store would activate "this week" — a promise he has heard repeatedly since December 2025. "I was told it could be up and going this week, I'm very excited about it," Panton said. He fields inquiries every day, including from visitors planning trips who ask where the nearest charger is. "I have to explain that, yes, there is a charger but it isn't yet running."

What was promised, and what's live

The Cooper's site was among 27 locations announced by the province in 2024, including 13 jointly funded by the provincial and federal governments at $1.4 million each, with the remainder funded by the province alone. The sites include the Cavendish Farms Wellness Centre in Montague, where Level 3 chargers are installed but also not yet activated. The chargers themselves come from Finland-based Kempower, and will be at least twice as powerful as the Level 3 units the province already operates under the Flo brand.

Timeline promises have slipped repeatedly. In January 2025, the province's net-zero charging infrastructure manager said the Cooper's site specifically would be ready that spring. In January 2026, a spokesperson blamed component delays and promised activation that March. Now the Department of Transportation acknowledges difficulties but stays vague on specifics — including how far over budget the project has run.

Why energizing a charger takes so long

Hillary Proctor, senior communications officer with the Department of Transportation, told the Graphic that increased project costs plus challenges coordinating equipment procurement, contractors and electrical work have affected the rollout. The chargers are now "being installed and brought online as they become available rather than waiting to activate the entire network at approximately the same time," she said, with "site-specific adjustments" made as the project progressed. The province insists the remaining work completes by March 2027, with several sites already installed or under construction and the rest packaged into an upcoming RFP.

The bigger pattern is regional. Kurt Sampson of the Electric Vehicle Association of Atlantic Canada pointed to fully installed Tesla V4 Supercharger sites in Truro and Moncton — eight stalls each — that have waited close to a year to be energized. Getting power to the chargers is often the hardest part, he said, since it can require new transformers, metering and distribution infrastructure from the utility. He also contrasted the region's pace with Quebec, where Hydro-Québec's Electric Circuit operates up to 5,000 charging stations with heavy utility and government backing: "We have a lot of catching up to do."

For a province whose tourism economy depends on summer road-trip traffic, dark-but-installed chargers are more than an embarrassment — they are reliability risk at its most visible. The lesson for the rest of Atlantic Canada's build-out: the charger is the easy part; the grid connection is the schedule.

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