An overwhelming majority of early electric vehicle adopters in Australia live in freestanding houses with off street parking. Being able to plug in to a power point in your garage or spend a few thousand dollars on a 7kW charger makes charging pretty simple.
But it’s not a luxury everyone has: Over 2.5 million Australians live in apartments and as EV uptake continues to ramp up, many Owners Committees will find themselves tackling the task of retrofitting apartment buildings with EV chargers.
Apartment buildings have a range of unique challenges to navigate when installing EV chargers ranging from limited electrical capacity, to recouping electricity costs, and garnering support from enough owners to approve a project.
The good news is that there is plenty of help available from experts, and new hardware and software solutions coming to market every few months to make the task easier.
Here are five things to consider when investigating EV charging in your apartment building:
Number 1: Futureproofing your Building
Unlike installing a 7kW charger on the side of a freestanding house, there are a range of different EV charging solutions to consider in a strata complex.
An Owner’s Committee should be thinking about the charging needs of residents in 5 or 10 years, not just the 3 current EV owners who are campaigning for chargers to be installed in the basement carpark. The existing electrical infrastructure and any new EVSE must be able to cope with the load of charging needs in the future.
The team at Solar Choice survey all the owners in a building as part of their feasibility study to understand people’s EV purchasing intentions and expectations around charging speed and access in the future. This data can helps inform the decision making process so the body corporate can avoid unnecessary capital expenditure.
The best futureproof solution is an electrical backbone which makes every parking space EV-ready by running power and data cable to every bay. Such an installation will usually include a load management system and new EV distribution boards, and the upfront costs are covered by the body corporate.
This allows individual lot owners or tenants to pay for the ‘last mile’ of the installation and have a charger installed in their parking bay at a time of their choosing, and is considered to be the most equitable way to electrify a car park.
That said, a full backbone can come with a hefty upfront cost so other options such as shared chargers in visitor parking bays and level 1 chargers installed throughout the carpark should also be scoped.
Number 2: Balancing Demand and Supply
When it comes to retrofitting apartment buildings for EV Charging, the available electrical capacity is often the biggest unknown factor. Having a small amount of capacity available to be allocated to chargers can influence the number and type of chargers that can be installed, and can also dictate the required hardware such as EVDBs and load management systems.
Your building’s available capacity is measured by calculating the difference between the load coming into the building from the grid, and the peak electrify demand of the entire building – think air conditioners, stovetops, washing machines and lighting throughout the complex.
The best way to measure your building’s current electrical use is have an electrical data logger installed on the incoming mains supply to the building for at least two weeks. Most good EV Charging feasibility studies will have a licensed electrician do this as part of their report.
Load management systems are a common part of apartment building EV charging installations. These systems will constantly monitor the electrical demand in the complex and automatically ramp down the power of the EV Chargers as the rest of the building’s use increases, and ramp it back up as more electricity is freed up. The existing electrical infrastructure in the building is protected, and it can eliminate the need for expensive power supply upgrades.
Number 3: How Will You Charge EV Owners for Electricity?
Every strata building is unique, so there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to EV charging retrofits. One of the big decisions to navigate is whether to connect to the common power meter or individual lot meters.
Connecting EV chargers to lot meters is the simplest solution as it allows EV drivers to pay for the electricity they use as part of their normal power bill, but is often not possible. Lot meters are rarely located in the same area as parking spaces, and given a significant part of the installation cost can be cable runs – especially if concrete penetrations are involved – the cost of connecting to lot meters can be prohibitive.
If EV chargers are connected to the common power meter, a billing platform will be required to automate the charging of EV owners and reimbursement of the Body Corporate who will be paying for the power initially.
There are many third-party billing platforms available, with simple solutions starting at $0 but requiring some administration, through to annual subscriptions around the $150 mark offering a seamless user and administrative experience.
Number 4: Start the Process with a Feasibility Study
There are so many variables to understand and weigh up when investigating EV charging in a strata complex. The best way to start the process is with a comprehensive feasibility study which will assess the existing electrical infrastructure, the physical requirements and barriers to installation, the building’s electrical capacity and consumption data, and much more.
The report will include all the possible types of charging options for your building, the associated costs, and the considerations that should be weighed up by owners.
Organisations like Solar Choice partner with Owners Committees to consult throughout the entire process, providing recommendations from their experience across hundreds of strata buildings and helping to find reliable installers with experience in complex strata installations.
An EV charging feasibility study will provide a roadmap to make the appropriate charging infrastructure available for the first owner with electric vehicles, as well as any required gradual rollout of further charging equipment as more owners switch from ICE to EV vehicles.
Without a roadmap, OC’s can easily waste money by putting capital expenditure towards non-scalable solutions, or by allowing individual owners to have their own charger installed without planning for the electrical capacity needs of future installations.
Number 5: Weighing Up the Costs and Benefits
Setting up EV charging infrastructure in an apartment complex may seem like a daunting task and there can be significant capital expenditure required, but the benefits far outweigh the costs. The convenience to residents is huge, and the cost of charging per kWh is lower than at public charging stations.
On the financial side, owners will benefit in myriad ways that should help secure the required vote to move ahead with an EVSE installation.
All owners will see an uplift in the value of their property as more prospective buyers will own EV’s in the coming years, and similarly tenants will increasingly be looking for apartments with EV-ready parking spaces. There are even depreciation tax write-offs for chargers and the backbone infrastructure to sweeten the deal.
Navigating apartment building retrofits may seem like a maze, and it’s true that there are more decisions to weigh up than simply choosing which 7kW charger you want the electrician to whack on the side of your house.
That said, starting with a feasibility study and engaging experts who have experience in strata buildings and can look at all the possible solutions will make the task far easier.
A lot of Owner’s Committees have put this issue in the ‘too hard basket’ for the past 5 years while early adopters have had to make do with public chargers, but the EV revolution is here, new hardware and software is making it easier than ever to tackle the challenge, and those who live in units can no longer be left behind.
Daniel Carson is Head of EV Charging Partnerships at Solar Choice.