Getting buildings ready for electric vehicles

The COVID pandemic caused new vehicle supply to slow down with many vehicle manufacturers struggling globally to meet customer demand for a few years.

This situation created a small window for landlords in Australia to start planning for the wave of electric vehicles (EVs) that hit our roads in 2024 and will contiue in the future.

According to the NSW Government, the lack of EV ready buildings could slow the adoption of EVs. That’s why they’re now providing tenants and owners with information to encourage infrastructure upgrades during these early stages of our transition to zero emission vehicles.

And the solution doesn’t need to be expensive. The basic principle is to charge electric vehicles outside of peak electricity demand periods. This can be done by managing the load rather than adding more capacity. It does, however, require some forward thinking.

Charging at work

If your business runs a fleet, you’ll need to prepare for electric vehicles. A lot will depend on the type of business you have, how your vehicles are being used, and whether you own your business premises. For many businesses, charging fleet vehicles overnight on the premises or giving employees the option to charge their electric vehicles during the day while they’re in the office will be necessary.

If you own your business premises, you’ll need to make a decision about installing EV chargers based on the investment required and whether you want to provide a benefit to your staff and visitors. If you’re renting your office space, the building owner will need to make that decision, and if there are multiple owners in a Strata scheme, the process will likely take more time and consultation, which means more pre-planning.

NSW Government Energy Saver provides a range of resources to help tenants and landlords work together. Here, you’ll find templates and checklists so you can work with each stakeholder to figure out the requirements and develop a plan.

One of the most useful sections explains the different types of EV chargers and how quickly they can charge a vehicle. This is often where fleet owners get stuck because there are so many options and bigger isn’t always better.

Charging at home

The Australasian Fleet Management Association partnered with AGL Energy in 2020 in a research project to investigate how prepared businesses were to transition to electric vehicles. 

It found that 47% of passenger and SUV fleets are garaged at home overnight. This will create challenges for employees that live in apartments if the building owners aren’t planning on installing EV charging stations.

A lack of forward planning by investors and owners could result in two possible outcomes:

1. People that drive electric vehicles will choose to live at an EV friendly address, which could lead to lower rental income for non-EV ready buildings.
2. Tenants may charge their EV using existing power sockets, which could create too much load at peak times for the existing electrical infrastructure.

5 steps to get ready for electric vehicles

To help with the transition, the Energy Saver website provides this five step process to making commercial or residential buildings EV ready:

1. Carry out a survey to understand the EV readiness of the tenants and building.
2. Conduct a building energy assessment to identify the current capacity and load.
3. Evaluate the needs of each vehicle that will be using the charging infrastructure.
4. Work out how everyone will pay to charge their vehicles.
5. Build a business case to support the investment.