Apartment EV Charging and DA approvals - Why you need to be ready now for the EV future
New developers are pushing the boundaries of modern living by providing unique luxuries as a standard inclusive in their packages. Property developers are ensuring to include EV charging solutions for their residents. Electric vehicle charging offers a tremendous opportunity for property developers. Parking spaces can be transformed from a lonesome, inactive parking space to a luxury real-estate. This adds value to the investors, residents and clients.
Current penetration of EV’s in Europe stands at 5% and is increasing rapidly, so according to this ratio developers should look to install 5-10% of car spaces to be EV charging ready. Political debate over climate crisis is divided into sub wars creating political distractions and blaming everyone but themselves. Developers have not waited around for government policies to work in their favour, companies like Mirvac have been quietly expanding the infrastructure to support the electrification of transport whether the customer wants to charge at home, office or shopping.
Considering the government’s plan of having 50% of new car sales to be electric.Electric Car Charging stations will be a compulsory need, this will be either at the resident’s place or work place. The current developments that want to create a differentiation from its competitors have taken notice to this trend. Commercial tenants are now requesting EV charging and gradually it is becoming a notable sales tool for all developers
Furthermore major states and territories will soon be releasing compulsory installation standards around EV charging and thus require a specific amount of carapaces be made available for EV charging. This DA process will potentially add costs to developments and therefore using smart scalable solutions will help reduce costs to developers while providing world class amenities to tenants. Apartment electric car charging should allow for expansion and fast charging.
The early planning and integration of EV chargers in a new apartment allows EV charging distribution to be installed. This allows satisfactory amount of power to be dedicated allowing future proof charging network to be installed in the future. A modular solution that is scalable without major changes to building loads can be achieve with a load management system. This without any additional cost to the client. Wide spread EV charging system and scalable power management from public and private electric infrastructure will lead to improvement in the reformation of EV charging.
To keep a low contract prices and low building cost, some developers have introduced a General-purpose outlet that will allow a simple 10A portable car charger to be connected to the EV. Or to be a bit fancy the 15A power point. The portable charge will provide a sustainable 3kW, enabling the driver to gain a range of 50km for an overnight charge. Plus the benefits of cheaper off-peak electricity will be a fraction of petrol prices. Developers have further pushed the renewable boundaries by introducing a solar roof, however the miniscule generation of solar panel and enormous consumption of electricity by the building is separated by several magnitudes.
The green building council of Australia awards a Greenstar point if 5% of car spaces have an EV charging availability. The policies are in place and the incentives are working – there is a hidden social movement that is contributing to spread of EV charging. The availability of EV charging facility in an apartment setting will create an "EV cluster" as famously put. This hidden incentive is when tenants are "more inclined to the purchase of EV because their neighbours have it". This phenomenon spreads and attracts more individuals towards EV’s.
Sam Korkees is an Electric car expert and enthusiast who believes in the transition of Australia to Electric vehicles. He believes that every car should be electric or you should walk. See more at https://evse.com.au/