Powering Ahead: A Guide for Apartment Property Owners on Implementing EV Charging Stations

As the electric vehicle (EV) revolution continues to gain momentum, apartment property owners find themselves at the forefront of a significant opportunity by installing EV charging stations for their tenants and adding a new amenity, they can attract new residents, retain existing residents longer, and open up a potential new revenue stream.

However, navigating the complexities of this transition requires a strategic approach. Here's a comprehensive guide to help property owners make informed decisions when adding EV charging stations to their properties.

Understanding Power Constraints

Before diving into EV charging infrastructure, it's crucial to assess the power constraints of your property. Conduct a thorough evaluation of your electrical system's capacity to determine if it can support the additional load from EV charging stations. Consulting with a qualified electrician or energy specialist can provide valuable insights into potential upgrades or modifications required to accommodate EV charging. However, great EV charging companies will handle all of these things for you, providing a true turnkey solution.

This step is important for every property, even new construction as what needs to be installed today often won’t be able to cover the property in the future. Property owners should look toward what they can do now while keeping an eye on the future and planning for the continued growth of the EV market.

Recognizing EV Demand and Adoption Trends

Keeping a pulse on the current EV demand in your area and anticipating the continued growth of EV adoption is essential. As more tenants opt for electric vehicles, the need for accessible charging infrastructure will only intensify. Develop a scalable plan to accommodate future demand, ensuring that your EV charging solution can expand seamlessly to meet evolving needs.

Depending on where the properties are located can mean a big difference in not only current EV adoption but also future EV demand. For example, take San Mateo County just outside of San Francisco, which boasts the highest EV new vehicle percentage in the US at around 40%. It's not hard to imagine that installing enough chargers to cover 20% of your property is going to set the property up for failure. Even if 20% seems high for the property now, likely, in a short period it's not going to cut it. This is why property owners not only want to work with a company that provides a plan to expand but also provide the technology required to do so in an intelligent and economical manner.?

Power Management Is Key

Power management is a critical aspect of EV charging infrastructure, especially in multi-tenant properties. It involves optimizing the distribution of available power among charging stations to prevent overload and ensure efficient operation. Implementing smart power management systems enables property owners to monitor energy usage, balance loads, and allocate resources effectively, ultimately enhancing the reliability and performance of EV charging facilities.

The best power management software does all of these things automatically, intelligently sending power where and when it's needed most, filling up the vehicles that are closer to zero first, and ensuring that everyone gets filled up in the most efficient manner. This is important because power management systems take the available power and use it to its maximum efficiency. This often means that power management can help properties install up to 10 times the number of stations that would normally be possible.?

However, it's important to remember that power management is no silver bullet, and eventually, no matter how intelligent the use of power is, you will run out and need to bring in new service. The best EV charging companies will let you know this upfront and help you build a plan for when that day comes so you’re never caught unaware.?

Importance of Billing and Reimbursement Software

As the complexity of EV charging operations increases, effective billing and reimbursement software becomes essential for seamless management and financial transparency.?

Billing software automates the process of calculating and generating invoices for EV charging services, ensuring accuracy and transparency in financial transactions. It allows property owners to track energy consumption, monitor charging sessions, and generate detailed reports for billing purposes. For multi-tenant properties, this software facilitates fair and transparent cost allocation by tracking individual usage and calculating reimbursement amounts based on consumption. It eliminates the need for manual tracking and simplifies the reimbursement process for everyone, providing audit trails, data security features, and compliance reporting capabilities to mitigate risks and maintain compliance.

By streamlining billing processes and enhancing financial transparency, billing software also enables property owners to optimize revenue generation from EV charging services. However, these revenue gains should come with a grain of salt as often overcharging for use can turn residents away and could not only affect the station usage but also your rental rates as well.?

Good charging companies will work directly with the property owners to understand their needs, help guide them in making a decision that ensures profitability but also gives residents peace of mind knowing that they aren’t being gouged.

Making Money Off EV Charging

Generating revenue off of charging stations is always something that's promoted as a huge benefit to the property but often falls well short of owners' expectations. This can usually be attributed to the fact that even marking up kWh pricing by 40% usually adds a handful of quarters to each charging session. Sure it's more than you had before, but seeing a huge change to your bottom line is unlikely. While adding a small markup to cover the costs of the installation and investment in charging infrastructure makes sense, it's going to take time without incentives often 7 - 10 years before you hit a full payback, and that's if maintenance costs are next to zero. If incentives are involved then it's likely to be paid off immediately. Good charging companies will make you aware of this fact straight away, and advise that you treat EV charging like an amenity that can pay for itself over time, not as a revenue-generating powerhouse from day one.?

Often what is a far better path to profitability for property owners is to simply charge tenants more for the EV charging space on their monthly rent, rather than hitting them with huge kWh markups. However the best option is to treat EV charging more likely as a shared laundry room, where all tenants have access, and it's a small markup on costs for the convenience of charging at home.?

Socket-Based Charging Outlets vs. Full EVSEs

When considering EV charging solutions, property owners must weigh the advantages of socket-based charging outlets versus full EV charging stations. Socket-based outlets provide a cost-effective option offering all the same features as full stations such as built-in authentication, metering, and safety functionalities. The biggest difference comes down to maintenance vs. temporary convenience.?

Socket-based chargers require residents to BYOC (Bring-Your-Own-Connector), meaning that they will need to have a mobile charging connector. The good news is that nearly all EVs sold today come with NEMA 14-50 connectors for Level 2 charging and NEMA 5-15 connectors for Level 1. So it's likely that the majority of EV drivers already have the ability to plug into an outlet, they really just need access to the energy. Full EV charging stations simply come with this cable already connected to the device, and while it adds a minor bit of convenience it also adds a large bit of maintenance as those affixed connectors commonly break within the first three years and cost hundreds of dollars to the property to replace. Owners should think long and hard about what exactly they are attempting to offer before going down one track over the other.?

When it's all said and done adding EV charging stations to apartment properties presents a promising opportunity to cater to the growing demand for sustainable transportation solutions among current and potential new residents. As many property owners now well know, they are likely to lose future residents if they don’t offer EV charging and this will only continue to grow as an issue into the future.?

By understanding power constraints, anticipating EV adoption trends, implementing robust power management systems, and selecting the appropriate charging infrastructure, property owners can effectively meet the needs of their current tenants and future residents while embracing the transition to electric mobility. Embrace the future of transportation by powering ahead with EV charging solutions for your property.