6 Factors to Consider When Planning Your EV Charging Infrastructure For Condos

As electric vehicles (EVs) continue to gain popularity, condo corporations and property managers are increasingly looking for scalable EV charging infrastructure that can be efficiently installed in their current infrastructure. To this end, it's helpful to understand your current infrastructure to prepare for an install. Here are six key factors to evaluate when assessing your building’s infrastructure to make your condo EV charger installation easy and efficient.

1. Understand Your Electrical System

The foundation of any successful EV charging solution for condos is a thorough understanding of your building’s electrical capacity. Start by evaluating the incoming power, including voltage and amperage, as well as your building’s peak demand.

Incoming power: What are the voltage and amperage specifications? Typically for one electrical panel that can accommodate 30 EV chargers, 100Amp and 600V (or 200Amp/208V), if power is managed.

Peak demand: Identify when your building uses the most power and how much it uses at peak demand.

Spare capacity: Determine how much electrical capacity is available for additional use. Typically, a 32amp 208V charger will require 6.65kWh. With metroEV’s power management feature, we are able to split the same power between multiple chargers. Depending on the number of chargers running at the same time, our metroEV software management system is able to deliver equal power to each charger. Learn more on how dynamic load management works. 

This step ensures your system can support EV chargers without overloading or requiring costly upgrades. If you’re unsure, consult an electrical engineer to conduct a thorough analysis.

Key questions to consider:

• What is your building’s current spare electrical capacity?

• Can the existing system support additional EV chargers without compromising other building functions?

metroEV offers professional assessments to help you understand your electrical system and identify any upgrades needed to support EV infrastructure. Contact metroEV to learn more about how our team of experts can help you assess your condo building’s electrical capacity.

2. Evaluate the Parking Garage Layout

Factors such as the number of parking levels, available space, and distance to electrical rooms play a significant role in designing EV charging infrastructure. 

Number of parking levels: Multi-level parking garages might require additional infrastructure, such as conduit routing and panel installations, to ensure even power distribution to each level. The complexity of wiring and installation increases with each additional level, which can increase costs and project timelines. 

Distance from parking space to electrical room: The farther the electrical room is from the parking spaces, the more extensive the wiring and conduit work required. Longer cable runs can lead to higher installation costs and potential voltage drop issues which affects efficiency of the chargers. By strategically placing electrical panels closer to the parking spaces and planning an organized conduit system can help increase efficiency and lower upgrade costs.

Things to keep in mind:

• Where the chargers will be installed for maximum accessibility.
• The ease of routing power to the designated areas.
• How many chargers can be accommodated now and in the future.

3. Review EV Charging Demand

Understanding how many residents are interested in EV charging can guide your investment decisions. Conduct surveys to gauge demand and identify potential usage patterns. Our team at metroEV created a downloadable owner feedback survey that you can distribute to condo owners to determine interest and demand. The results from this survey will help you to evaluate the required infrastructure and gauge overall costs. You can download our free owner feedback survey on our EV charging for condos page.

Key things to consider:

• How many residents have expressed interest in EV charging?
• Have you conducted a survey to quantify demand?
• What were the survey results, and how do they inform initial installations?

Gathering research on the current level of interest helps you scale your EV infrastructure appropriately and prioritize installations based on need. 

4. Choose Between Private and Shared EV Chargers

When it comes to EV charging, there are two primary installation models: private chargers and communal (shared) chargers. Each model has distinct benefits and challenges, and the right choice depends on your building’s infrastructure, budget, and resident needs.

Private EV Chargers

Shared EV Chargers

Learn more about private and shared EV chargers and how to choose the right solution for your condo building.

5. Determine the Size of the EV Charging Infrastructure

When planning the size of your EV charging infrastructure, it's important to balance between meeting immediate demand and allowing room for future growth. Ensure that your building’s initial electrical setup can handle additional chargers without significant upgrades.

Start by installing one or two panels to accommodate the initial EV chargers. This setup is a foundational infrastructure that can be expanded as demand increases. Installing too many EV chargers at the beginning can result in unnecessary costs, while underestimating future growth can lead to expensive upgrades.

Learn more on the importance of implementing scalable EV charging infrastructure for your condo building.

6. Understand the Key Technology Options

When it comes to technology, you’ll need to choose between smart chargers and smart panels. 

Smart Chargers 

Smart chargers are individual EV charging stations equipped with advanced features to optimize charging sessions and manage energy use.

Smart Chargers Key Features

EV charging app integration: Allow drivers to schedule charging times and monitor energy usage via apps. With the metroEV app, drivers can easily check real-time charger availability and energy use, view billing information, and receive instant notifications when their charging session is complete.

Dynamic load balancing: Balance power among multiple EV chargers connected to the same circuit. Learn more about how dynamic load management can help save money and energy.

Real-time data insights: Provide information on charging patterns and session durations. metroEV's EV charging management software allows you to monitor charging station performance and health in real-time, analyze energy usage patterns for specific chargers, and identify maintenance needs or opportunities for improvement.

Customized billing options: This feature allows you to customize rate plans by energy consumption, charge time and pricing tiers for guests and residents to optimize use and minimize loitering.

Scalability: Easier to expand as EV demand grows. metroEV's Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP)-compliant software is designed to provide flexibility to scale your building's EV charging infrastructure and easily integrate with new hardware and/or software as the needs of your condo building evolve.

Smart Panels

Smart panels are advanced electrical panels that manage the distribution of power throughout a building. They monitor and optimize electrical loads to ensure efficient energy use. However, this option is a proprietary solution which means it is not OCPP compliant, restricting scalability and the capability to communicate with other EV charging stations and networks. 

Smart Panel Key Features

Load Balancing: Distribute electrical power to avoid overloading circuits. This allows more EVs to charge simultaneously, optimizes energy use and maximizes savings during peak and off-peak hours. Learn more about how dynamic load management can help save money and energy.

Centralized Control: Manage the entire building’s energy usage, including EV chargers, from a single platform. 

Real-time Reporting: Provide real-time data on energy consumption for property managers.

Next Steps

By assessing your building’s electrical system, parking layout, and current demand, and by planning for scalability and selecting the right technology, you can make informed decisions that benefit your property and its residents. metroEV and our team of experts have proven success and experience in working with property managers, condo boards, developers, engineers, and architects to install EV charging stations for condo buildings.

Contact metroEV today to learn how we can help you navigate this transition and unlock the full potential of your EV charging network.

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