EV Charger Installation in Strata Schemes
Electric vehicles are fast becoming mainstream in Australia – and everyone who buys one wants to charge it at home. If your strata scheme doesn’t have EV chargers installed, or plans for EV charger installation, now’s the time to get started!
What’s driving the urgency? There are three things every strata committee and owners corporation should be aware of:
1. Electric vehicles and hybrids make up an increasing percentage of new car sales.
2025 figures show:
- Battery electric vehicles (BEV) at 9% market share
- Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) at 4% market share
- Hybrid vehicles at 16% market share
That adds up to 19% (almost one in three) of new purchasers in 2025 with a vehicle they might want to charge at home.
(2025 Data. Source: Australian Automotive Dealer Association)
By May 2026, that had grown to 46% of all sales, with battery electric vehicles taking a record 20% of the market.
If your owners and residents aren’t asking for EV charging infrastructure now, they soon will be!
2. New NSW legislation will make it harder to refuse applications for EV charger installations
The Strata Schemes Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill 2025 is currently before the NSW Parliament. It has already passed Legislative Assembly and is expected to pass Legislative Council shortly.
This will give lot owners a legal right to install an EV charging station on their lot, even if it requires work on common property.
If one of your owners applies to install an EV charging station, it will be very difficult for the strata committee or owners corporation, to say no. You will need to demonstrate a clear reason for the rejection – lack of power capacity; serious infrastructure risk, or an installation plan which doesn't include full details and licensed contractors.
Importantly, you can't refuse on the grounds that approving one application won't leave enough power capacity for the next five applicants. You must approve applications right up to the point where one more charger would affect everyone’s power.
You’re going to need to know what your strata’s power capacity is. You might as well use that information to put a strata-wide strategy in place, so you can manage this shift in infrastructure proactively rather than responding to individual applications.
3. Adding EV charging capabilities will likely lift property values for your strata.
Over time, people will come to expect and demand EV charging in their strata properties. Getting it right now can deliver a good outcome for all owners.
How to Develop an EV Charger Installation Strategy
Before deciding on a strategy, make sure you collect good information, and have clarity about your options. Key questions to address include:
- How much demand for EV charging is there right now?
- How fast should you expect that to increase?
- What’s the current power capacity of your strata? How much EV charging can you support?
- What factors are limiting current power capacity?
- What options do you have to increase capacity? How much do they cost?
- Are there other risks, issues and concerns you need to address?
- Who will bear the various costs of upgrading? This includes the cost of shared infrastructure (power supply, conduits, switchboards and distribution boards, management software) as well as the charging stations themselves.
- EV charging will increase overall power usage by the strata. How will that power usage be managed, and how will costs be passed on to end-users?
Let’s review these step by step.
Clarifying current and future demand
It’s likely you already have some indication of demand levels. Owners may have installed, or applied to install, EV charging stations already. There may have been questions or discussion at strata meetings.
It’s a good idea to investigate further. A survey of residents and owners can give you more information about not just:
- Current and future interest in buying electric vehicles
- Expectations for charging EVs (individual charging point vs shared charging)
- Opinions about how infrastructure changes should be funded and willingness to pay extra fees to support upgrades
Assessing your current power capability
It’s equally important to determine how much additional EV charging capability your current electrical infrastructure can support.
Businesses who can assist with this include:
- EV installation specialists
- Commercial electricians (Level 2 and above)
- Independent energy auditors
Investigating different options for EV charger installation
Once you have an idea of demand and an assessment of capacity, you have a clearer understanding of the gap.
The next challenge is working out how you can close that gap, how much it will cost, and how it will be paid for.
Options for Upgrading Power Capacity
There are a few different models you can use to upgrade power capacity as you install EV charging.
Some considerations apply whichever model you choose:
- The National Construction Code requires dedicated EV distribution boards when multiple EV chargers are installed in the same building. This applies to most stratas developing an EV charing capacity.
- If you have or plan for five or more EV chargers, a load management system is strongly recommended. The load management system
- prevents demand spikes from EV charging that might trip your standard residential power
- shares power between vehicles — most systems prioritise vehicles with a lower charge, so that no one ends up with a flat battery
- When reviewing quotations, look for OCPP-approved (Open Charge Point Protocol) software and equipment. OCCP allows different chargers and software to communicate, so you avoid being locked into one vendor.
Now let’s look at the models.
Model 1: Individual retrofits
At first sight, this seems simple. Individual owners install EV charging equipment at their own parking space as and when they choose. Each owner (or a resident tenant if the owner negotiates it) bears the full cost of installation.
However, there are some major issues:
- This model requires individual distribution boards with separate billing.
- Without an overall load management system, there’s a high risk of overloading the system. Core power for lights, heating and aircon could become unreliable.
- It’s likely that at some point you will need to upgrade the backbone infrastructure to the strata building. Once again, this is a strata-wide investment. Who will pay how much? Do those who have EV charging in place pay more than those who don’t have it yet?
Different owners are likely to install different charging equipment, which may make ongoing upgrades more complex. If you don’t have a proactive EV charging policy, you will probably default to this model, with all the above issues.
Also note that you will still need a capacity assessment to work out how many chargers your current infrastructure can support.
Model 2: Shared charging stations
In this model, the owners corporation takes responsibility for both backbone infrastructure and the actual charging infrastructure. Charging takes place in shared stations.
Key questions with this model include:
- Where will you locate your charging stations? The easiest option is to reallocate visitor parking spots for charging, but visitor parking may already be a challenging issue in the strata.
- How do you ensure fair usage of the charging stations? This could be via a booking system or dedicated software.
- How do you recover installation costs? Is it fair to expect owners who do not have an EV to pay the same amount as those who do, since they will get no immediate benefit?
- How do you bill for energy used charging vehicles? Do you track time plugged in, or energy used? (With load balancing and management, the two may not be the same.) There are software solutions which can handle this, but you need to agree a policy first.
Model 3: Whole-of-strata upgrade
This solution involves upgrading the power capacity of the entire strata so that it can support every private parking spot having an EV charger.
It is the ‘ideal’ solution from a technical point of view – but also the most expensive in terms of capital works. Cost may make it unacceptable.
There are ways to mitigate and spread the cost, depending on your circumstances
- Strata could fund the backbone infrastructure only (power supply, distribution boards, wiring, conduits, and load management software). Individual owners then pay for installation and connection of an EV charging station in their own parking space when they are ready. The infrastructure includes separate billing.
- You may be able to roll out the upgrade over time. For example, you could start with the overall power supply, plus distribution boards, wiring and conduits to one section of the car park, then extend as usage grows. This could mean some trading of parking spots in the short term, so that owners or residents with EVs can access the spots which are set up.
Working out who pays for which parts of the EV charger installation
The costs related to EV charging break down into three different categories:
- Backbone infrastructure installation and maintenance. This is generally the responsibility of the owners corporation – it is in effect common property.
- Individual EV charging stations.
Who pays for these is less clear. It depends on the implementation model and on the preferences of the owners corporation.- When EV charging stations are installed on common property and used for common charging, the owners corporation usually pays installation costs. However, it may choose to recover some or all of the costs from owners and residents who own an EV only, since these are the people who can benefit from the infrastructure. This may be done via a special levy, one-time or at a set schedule.
- When EV charging stations are installed at private car spaces for individual use, it can be either the owners corporation or the individual lot owners who pay.
If stations are being rolled out gradually, this becomes even more complex. An owner without an electric vehicle may find that their property has a station installed and increases in value as a result, but that value is of no immediate benefit to them.
The situation is different in every strata. Clear communication and negotiation are vital to work out a plan which everyone can accept.
- Ongoing costs of charging electronic vehicles.
These costs are generally borne by the owners of the individual electronic vehicles. It is important to be clear about how charges are calculated and allocated.- Where power used at each EV station is tracked and billed to a separate account, this is an easy process.
- Where a shared charging station model applies, users may be charged for time plugged into the station, or for power used. Either model is fine, but it’s important to be clear.
There may also be grants available from various government departments and organisations.
The Process: Deciding and Implementing an EV Charging Solution
The best option for you depends both on the physical constraints of your specific strata building or buildings, and the wishes of the owners.
The strata committee (or a strata manager working with the committee) can investigate options and recommend one or more solutions, but does not have authority to implement.
The owners corporation must pass a resolution at a general meeting.
In New South Wales, EV charging is considered sustainability infrastructure, so the owners this will be a sustainability infrastructure resolution rather than a special resolution. That means a simple majority of more than 50% is enough, rather than the 75% majority normally required.
It also means the resolution cannot be rejected simply for aesthetic reasons, unless your strata is a heritage building or in a heritage area.
Heritage buildings and heritage areas
Heritage status makes the process around EV charging more complicated.
On the one hand, strata committees and owners corporations have more power to refuse applications. They may veto EV charger installation on aesthetic grounds. However, they need to demonstrate that the proposal includes visible equipment which harms historic fabric or appearance.
A further issue is that review and approval by local council may also be required. This is to ensure that drilling holes and running cable does not affect the structural or visual integrity of a heritage property. Council requirements and processes may add time and cost to the overall project.
What your resolution and bylaw should cover when implementing EV charging
Your resolution and bylaw should include:
- The plan for EV charger installation, including the location of charging stations and of new infrastructure required.
- Details of how installation will be paid for, and of any cost recovery activities.
This could be as simple as budgeting a figure in your capital works fund, or it could involve special levies for some or all lot owners. - A plan for ongoing maintenance
- Where EV charging stations are shared, information about the booking process and about any limitations or guidelines around use of the stations.
- Information about how the costs of power for EV charging will be tracked, allocated and paid.
- Where individual lot owners can install EV charging capability on their own schedule, information about the application and notification process.
If you are reallocating common property from a different purpose (eg, visitor parking) to install EV charging stations, you may also need to update other existing bylaws.
Closing Thoughts
Installing EV charging capacity in a strata environment may appear complicated at first glance, but taking things one step at a time is the path to success.
Always start by understanding the level of demand; your current power capacity, and the size of the gap between the two.
Assess options for moving forward based on this gap.
For strata committee members, the time required to investigate options and consult with everyone can be a drain. Your strata manager should be able to support you, especially with gathering information and costs. We’ve been through this process many times, so we can advise from a position of knowledge. If you’re looking for practical, expert support for EV charger installation or other strata matters, we’d love to hear from you.
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The following government pages also contain good resources about EV charger installation in strata properties.