Henry Penn of Lake Clooney Research Station in North America, 220 miles (220 km) northwest of Whitehorse, wanted to find a way to convert a mid-size Kubota gas-powered vehicle used at the station into an electric motor.
Students from the University of Calgary Schulich School of Engineering – Jasmine McDermott, Austin Bercier, Wylie Pietsch, Marlin Sako, Alejandro Sulbaran and Natasha Eden – jumped at Penn’s request.
Kri Dermot, a native of Kri, and Bersier, Metis, hoped to find a project that would allow them to give something back to their communities.
“We wanted to do a project that was relevant to us,” McDermott said.
All-terrain and utility vehicles are a necessity of life in the North to transport people and goods to some of the most isolated landscapes in the world.
In tests so far, the batteries have been able to run the ATV for at least 90 minutes, and recharging simply involves plugging it into a normal outlet, McDermott said.
“Basically, it’s just like any other device you have in your life when you plug it into any electrical source,” he said.
“We design it for the average person.  The nice thing about charging is that it has automatic shut-off, so it does not overload.  You can just leave it on. “
Bercier said the group has a blueprint for their work and has prepared a handbook for indigenous and remote communities so they can make the conversions themselves.  Fuel prices are very expensive in the north, so it will help reduce costs, he added.
“Many of the indigenous communities up there use these types of vehicles as their main workhorse around their homes … and we want to give them … the option to switch to greener technology,” Bercier said.
“We wanted to develop a conversion kit using a local supply chain where you could get spare parts to Canada and reach their remote locations to basically convert their own vehicles into electric ones.”
The conversion cost is about $ 7,000 and takes about a week.
Bercier said a key challenge was the weather.
“The average winter temperature in the Yukon is well below -30 degrees Celsius, so that was something we had to take into account in our design and (it) influenced almost every major design decision the team made.”
The project advisor was Kerry Black, Assistant Professor and Research Canada at the Department of Civil Engineering at the Schulich School of Engineering.
“It’s been gung-ho from the beginning.  “He is a different kind of student,” he said.
“They have the community and the context in mind throughout the process and have really advocated an approach that recognizes the needs of remote and indigenous communities in the north.”
The ATV has been sent back to the Yukon Research Station.  He will be exhibiting at a conference on renewable energy in remote communities in Whitehorse in a few weeks.
This Canadian Press report was first published on April 17, 2022.