Workplace EV charging across south-east Melbourne and the CBD

A car park problem that is actually a supply problem

Workplace EV charging looks like a question about where the chargers go. It is almost always a question about what the building can carry at five o’clock, when the lighting, the plant and half a dozen cars all want power at once.

Six chargers at full output is a substantial addition to a building’s peak demand. The answer is usually not a supply upgrade.

Load management is the answer most of the time

Load management shares the available supply across the active chargers rather than letting each draw maximum. Cars charging overnight or across a working day have far more time than they need, so throttling is invisible to the driver and removes the demand problem entirely.

On almost every commercial site it is dramatically cheaper than upgrading the supply, and it is the difference between installing two chargers and installing eight.

Design for the count you will need

The expensive part of a car park installation is the civil work: trenching, containment and the cable route. Doing that once for eight bays and populating four of them is far cheaper than doing it twice.

Uptake tends to accelerate once the first chargers appear, so the number you want in three years is usually well above the number you are asking about today.

Metering, billing and who pays

Whether staff charging is a benefit, a cost recovery or a salary packaging arrangement, the electricity has to be measured to be attributed. Metering and access control on the chargers is straightforward at installation and awkward to retrofit, so it is worth deciding before rather than after.

Strata and building management

Anything on common property needs the owners corporation to authorise it, and that approval is what delays most of these projects rather than the work. Establish who approves the spend and who controls the car park before getting quotes, and the rest moves quickly.

Depending on charger rating and existing supply, your distributor may need notification or may set conditions on the install. We sort that out while quoting, and lodge whatever the network asks for.