Examples of the challenges Parking Operators & Body Corps will find:
Electric vehicle charging for apartments and parking buildings can present a unique set of challenges to building owners, body corporates and their electrical contractors. While rapid DC based EV charging solutions will be suitable for a public charging service, most EV charging behaviour will occur overnight or during extended parking periods. For these occasions, slower AC charging systems are best suited and provide an affordable option for mass adoption.
Parking building operators and body corporates managing apartment buildings will increasingly be asked to install and manage EV charging solutions for their parking customers and apartment owners & tenants. Doing this on a small scale with a few EV chargers is generally straightforward , however, once the number of EV chargers begins to scale then issues can arise.
- The electricity supply to the building is limited, with little spare capacity available, traditional solutions would call for expensive electricity supply upgrades.
- The building has limited spare capacity during high use times, but has spare capacity at other times, such as overnight.
- Small scale installations of EV chargers generally present no issue, but more than a few will quickly absorb any available capacity, the question of who is given access to the charging becomes an issue.
- The Body Corp needs to recover the cost of electricity from the tenant or EV owner, traditionally this would require a dedicated metered supply.
- Managing the fleet of EV chargers becomes difficult, more so if multiple brands or types of EV chargers are installed depending on the EV driver’s requirements.
- As smart chargers are connected to the internet, they require either Ethernet, WiFi or cellular connections. Both Ethernet and WiFi present issues connecting to corporate networks & cyber-security, hassles such as maintaining passwords and the like.
