Apartment EV Charging: All You Need To Know

With the rapid rise of electric vehicle (EV) adoption in Australia, apartment residents and building managers are facing unique challenges around installing EV charging infrastructure in strata buildings. From navigating complex legal requirements and securing body corporate approval to ensuring the building’s power infrastructure can handle the load, careful planning is essential for a smooth and successful installation. We’ll also explore government incentives, installation options, and custom solutions to help you navigate both technical and legal requirements with ease.

Solar Choice offers expert, end-to-end support for apartment EV charging across Australia. Whether your apartment EV Charger project is in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, or beyond, we guide you through every step—from navigating legal requirements and understanding installation costs to selecting the ideal charging solutions for your building. Our mission is to make EV charging simple, affordable, and fully compliant, helping you future-proof your property for Australia’s rapidly growing electric vehicle market.

Ready to make the switch? Let’s dive into what you need to know about EV charger installation in Australian apartments.

Overview: Installing EV Chargers in Australian Apartment Buildings

Key Takeaways: How to Install EV Chargers in Australian Apartments

• Navigate Strata Laws & Approvals: Installing EV chargers in apartment buildings requires body corporate approval and compliance with strata laws. A feasibility assessment is crucial to evaluate power availability and infrastructure needs.
• Charger Types & Installation: Choose between Level 1 (basic, slow, plug-in chargers) or Level 2 (faster, requires installation) chargers for apartments. DC fast chargers are not practical due to high infrastructure demands.
• Assess Feasibility First: Conduct a Feasibility Study to assess your building’s electrical capacity, the cost of EV charging in apartments, and potential upgrades. This critical step ensures the infrastructure can support EV chargers for all owners, preventing potential power overloads and mitigates costly risks & challenges down the line.
• Cost Overview: Initial backbone infrastructure typically range from $1,000 – $4,000 per apartment, with individual charger installation costs between $2,000 – $4,000. Costs will vary depending on your building’s specific infrastructure needs—explore more details below to see how these estimates might apply to your project.
• Maximise Property Value & Convenience: Installing EV chargers boosts property value, attracts renters or buyers, and supports Australia’s growing electric vehicle market. It also future-proofs your building, making it more appealing as EV adoption continues to rise.
• Expert Support: Solar Choice provides expert, hands-on support, guiding you through every step of the EV charging process—from feasibility assessments to approvals and beyond installation. Our goal is to make this complex process seamless and stress-free for all involved.

The Basics of EV Charging for Apartments

Before diving into the complexities of EV charging in strata apartment buildings, it’s crucial to understand the basics. EV charging is the process of supplying electric energy to recharge an electric vehicle’s battery. To enjoy the convenience of never needing to visit a petrol station again, having a method to charge your vehicle at home is es.

Electric vehicle charger types: Choosing the best EV charger for your apartment Building

• Level 1 Chargers: These chargers can be plugged into a standard electrical outlet and are typically used for charging at home. Although they’re convenient and require no additional setup, they charge rather slowly.
• Level 2 Chargers: A step up from Level 1, these chargers need a dedicated circuit and deliver a higher charging speed. They’re often found in commercial settings but can be installed at home with the right setup.
• DC Fast Chargers: Not feasible for apartment complex EV charging due to their hefty infrastructure requirements.

How to get started?

The first step for any Apartment to get started on a EV Charging project is to complete a EV Charging Feasibility Assessment. This will involve the Body Corporate engaging a consultant to assess the buildings infrastructure, measure power availability at the building and put together a report and strategic roadmap for the owners on the possible options for installing EV Charging infrastructure.

There is some good advice and information available online, however every Apartment Building is unique and will have their own set of challenges to solve. There is no short-cut to getting a professional assessment completed.

A resident, owner, committee member or strata manager can request a quote for an EV Charging Feasibility Assessment on behalf of the building. This quote should be shared with the strata manager and owner’s committee for approval.

Once the feasibility assessment is completed – you should have a clear plan on how to get your Apartment Building EV ready.

What’s included in EV Charging Feasibility Assessment?

Before allowing strata apartment EV charger installations, we recommend the building complete a feasibility assessment and establish a roadmap to enable all owners to have access to EV charging infrastructure.

Solar Choice has completed EV charging feasibility assessments for strata buildings all across Australia and is highly experienced in advising apartment owners on the best and most cost-effective solutions.

Our approach includes the following:

• Site Survey: Organising a qualified and experienced electrician to complete a detailed site survey of all the existing electrical infrastructure, including the incoming mains, main switchboard, meters and breakers, parking bays and potential cable pathways
• Power Monitoring: Installing a temporary power consumption logger onto the incoming mains so we can determine the power consumption within the building and how much available capacity exists to dedicate to EV Charging
• Engineering Review: Solar Choice’s engineering team will review all collected information from site and set out the recommended options for enabling EV charging infrastructure for all apartment owners, including staging out the project where possible to avoid a big upfront cost
• Consultation: A Solar Choice consultant will explain the recommendation and finds to the owners
• Recommendation: Solar Choice can recommend an reputable electrical contractor in every state with experience installing EV charging infrastructure within apartment buildings.

End-to-End Project Support:

As part of signing up to complete a feasibility study for your building Solar Choice will remain available to guide you all the way through the project through to installation. Our goal is to help owners actually implement solutions and we have experience solving the various fire, insurance, strata laws and voting problems that may arise.

If you are looking at other consultants to complete a feasibility study, we highly recommend ensuring that a qualified electrician attends site and installs a power consumption monitoring device as part of the assessment. We have seen many ‘off the shelf’ feasibility studies that really don’t look at all the options or provide clear guidance to Owners on the best pathways forward.

Installing EV Chargers in Apartments: Risks & Challenges

You may think, why can’t the new owners of the electric vehicle just pay for their own chargers to be installed on their own meter?

Firstly and foremost, almost every strata apartment building we have examined does not have sufficient power supply for every parking space to have an operating EV Charger without tripping the power supply to the whole building. You might be able to get away with the first couple of EV Chargers, but at some point you are going to need a solution.

Most apartment EV charging solutions offer a clear guide for owners, detailing the types of electric car charging points they can install, how the cables connect to the main switchboard, and the process for paying for the electricity used.

It is recommended that strata buildings have a strategy and roadmap in place for EV Charging before they give permission to an owner to install a charging device.

Crucially this avoids costly processes of unwinding installations or replacing chargers at a later date and ensures that all owners have equal opportunity to access EV Charging infrastructure.

If there is already power running to the parking spaces and each space has a power outlet, it is quite common that this power is run from the common property meter. This means that the whole building will be sharing the cost of charging the vehicle.

EV Charging Solutions for Apartments: Installation Options

The feasibility and costs of each solution will vary greatly depending on the existing power supply and electrical infrastructure, the design of the parking areas and the requirements of the owners in terms of the EV charging equipment.

Visitor parking bays

One way to get started with EV charging at your strata apartment without committing to a bigger solution is to install EV charging equipment in the visitor parking bays.

Some rules can be embedded into the charging devices which help limit the maximum use time to ensure the charging equipment can be shared.

Clearly, this isn’t a long-term solution, but can buy some time for the building in lieu of a larger solution.

Trickle charging only

There are different levels of EV charging which require different amounts of power. Trickle charging (level 1) is the slowest option which usually uses a regular 10 Amp power socket. A 15Amp socket can also be considered which can improve the charge speed.

In some cases, we have seen that there is sufficient capacity available on the power supply for most residents to install a trickle charger without risking an overload on the power supply. There are solutions for the Owners Corporation to recover the power consumption costs if the power sockets are connected to the common meter.

Solar Choice Case Study – Level 1 EV Charging Solution for 24 Unit Apartment Building in Sydney.

Level 2 EV Charging with Load management systems

For buildings with low power capacity, or looking to add fast-charging EV infrastructure a ‘load management system’ will ensure that the total power demand doesn’t exceed the power available in the building.

The load management system monitors power availability in real time, and has the ability to control the power draw of the EV chargers and throttle back power usage where necessary. In the case of residential apartment buildings, often power throttling will only occur in peak demand times (e.g. 5pm to 9pm) and there is plenty of power available overnight.

The are several different load management solutions on the market varying in capability and cost. The below table outlines some of the choices:

Benefits of installing an EV charger in your apartment

Despite the initial costs and challenges, there are several benefits to strata apartment electric car charging:

Flexibility for Owners

Having an EV charger capability in your apartment carpark means owners have the choice to buy an Electric Vehicle and not suffer any inconvenience. Many owners will not make a purchase until this infrastructure is available which is a big problem for Australia’s electrification journey.

Increased Property Value

As Electric Vehicle adoption continues to grow, the availability of charging infrastructure in parking bays is increasingly going to be a consideration for potential buyers. Renters with EVs are also willing to pay more for apartments with EV Charging access.

Improve Charge Speeds and Solar Integration

If you have solar installed at your apartment building, then the EV Charging solution can benefit from the lowest cost power. The benefits can be passed onto the owners or flow back to the Body Corporate. EV Chargers will also decrease the recharge time for owners which can save time and money on public fast-charging stations.

How much does it cost to install an EV charger in an apartment?

Installing EV charger in an apartment building is usually completed over 2 stages

1. Installing the backbone infrastructure to enable EV Charging – anywhere from $1,000 to $4,000+ per apartment (usually paid by Body Corporate)
2. Installing individual EV charger withing relevant parking bay – typically around $2,000 to $4,000 (usually paid by the relevant owner when they are ready)

Some considerations that impact costing:

• Can the charger be wall-mounted or is a free-standing solution required?
• Will a bollard need to be installed to prevent vehicles from accidentally reversing into the charger?
• What distance a cable will need to travel to connect to the main switchboard or closest sub-distribution board?
• Will trenching or core holes be required for the cable run?

It is important to note that there are a number of different approaches to enabling EV Charging infrastructure for apartment owners ranging from a regular 10 Amp power socket to a high speed EV charger. Picking the right option requires a good understanding of the cost to implement each option and the pros and cons of each option as the building experiences a greater number of Electric Vehicles in the carpark.

The best way to understand the options available is by undergoing a feasibility study which is paid for by the body corporate.

What are the voting and strata requirements for EV charging decisions?

Strata legislation usually requires that changes to common property (including installing electric vehicle chargers in parking areas) follow specific voting requirements. A vote will need to take place at an all owners meeting either the Annual General Meeting (AGM) or a Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM).

In many states, achieving a special resolution is required normally meaning that no more than 25% of the votes (based on the unit entitlement set out in the strata plan) oppose the motion.

In NSW, ACT, WA, Tasmania and in some cases in QLD different rules apply where a simple 50% majority is required to pass a motion on EV Charging infrastructure.

Can I just install my own EV charger at my apartment?

The short answer is no.

Most strata buildings have limited power supply from the grid. It would only take a small number of residents installing their own charger in order to exceed this limit. If this happens, the mains power supply to the building would trip and you would lose power to the entire building.

Installing EV chargers without a prior plan could lead to unfair access for later adopters of EVs or additional costs for replacing existing EV chargers with future-compatible models or for rewiring.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Conclusion

Retrofitting EV chargers in apartment buildings in Australia is a complex but increasingly necessary undertaking. The main take away from this article is that there are a variety of different types of options to consider and the best way to set this out for the owners to consider is through commissioning an EV charging feasibility assessment. This provides the necessary information and education to navigate the challenges and costs associated with body corporate electric vehicle charging.

Further Reading

For more in-depth information, you can consult Solar Choice’s Complete EV Home Charger Guide or check our Product Reviews.

• About
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Jeff Sykes

CEO at Solar Choice

Jeff has consulted on over 20MW of commercial solar projects, ranging from SMEs to ASX top 100 companies. Jeff has also provided independent advice to 100s of residential solar, battery and EV charging customers across every state in Australia. He holds an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management and is an expert in business strategy and financial analysis.

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