How to Get Your Residential Strata Building EV Ready

Over four million Australians currently reside in strata-titled properties and given that this is the fastest growing type of property ownership in Australia, this number is only set to grow over time.  

If you’re a strata manager, you’re likely planning what you need to do to get your buildings future-proofed and ready for this influx of growth. One of the main considerations to think about is how to prepare for the increase in electric vehicle ownership amongst your tenants.  

Energy and Residential Assessments  

The first step is to conduct a resident survey to understand both the needs and attitudes of all the tenants and owners, and to understand the timing and scale of the infrastructure involved. It’s also important to factor to plan for the next few years, not just what the current residency patterns are at this point in time.  

Understanding your building’s energy capacity is a key part of the charging infrastructure installation process. An energy auditor can identify existing circuit breaker sizes, historical peak energy loads, and energy usage patterns.  

Approaches to Installing EV Chargers 

There are three key methods of integrating EV chargers into your strata; the individual model, shared model, or whole of building model.  

If resident’s meters are easily accessible, individual tenants may be able to simply install individual charging meters. However, under this method, each request requires detailed investigation and must be treated like renovation application, meaning that an individual by-law will be required every time. Further, it doesn’t provide a comprehensive solution long term given its lack of scalability.  

A shared model results in charging infrastructure being installed in common areas like visitor or guest parking. If you expect high demand or want to add the maximum amount of value to your building, you can install EV charging infrastructure to every car space in the ‘whole of building’ approach.  

One of your main reservations may be how to allocate costs to the tenants charging.  At EVOS Energy, our AC Charging hardware and EVOS Energy Platform intelligently allocate energy costs to unit owners, removing the hassle of having to keep track of costs yourself.  

We’re seeing the EV regulation landscape constantly change and it’s critical to be aware of how this may impact your future property developments. In 2022, the National Construction Code introduced regulations outlining the minimum installation requirements for EV infrastructure in new developments. Let’s look at an example. In multi-unit residential buildings, 100% of carparks will need to have sufficient electrical capacity and distribution boards to support EVSEs. 

Formal General Meeting Approval  

After selecting the model that’s most likely going to benefit your strata, you’ll need to conduct a general meeting with the tenants. Make sure you check legislation in your state to determine what vote weightings each of these groups have. 

Overall, preparing for EV uptake is a key to future-proofing your strata and ensuring that the property is ahead of the curve. 

If you have any questions about EVOS’s energy management solutions for strata, reach out to our friendly sales team at sayhi@evos.com.au