EV Charger Installation for Apartments & Strata Melbourne

The Strata EV Charging Challenge

Installing an EV charger in an apartment or strata-titled property is more complex than in a standalone home – but it’s absolutely achievable with the right approach. The challenges are real (shared infrastructure, body corporate approvals, cost allocation), but they’re solvable, and Melbourne strata buildings are increasingly getting it done.

Carlin Co specialises in strata electrical work across Melbourne and has navigated the body corporate process for numerous EV charger installations. As NETCC Approved Sellers and Tesla Certified Installers, we provide the technical expertise and professional documentation that strata committees need to approve installations confidently.

Understanding the Key Challenges

Shared Electrical Infrastructure

Most apartment buildings have a common electrical supply that serves common areas (lifts, lighting, fire systems) and individual lot supplies that serve each apartment. EV chargers draw significant power (up to 32 amps continuously), and the building’s common or individual supply may not have sufficient spare capacity.

Solutions:

• Individual lot supply: If your car space has access to your apartment’s electrical meter, the charger can be connected to your private supply – you pay for your own charging, and the body corporate’s common supply isn’t affected. This is the simplest approach but requires cable routing from your meter to your car space.

• Common area supply with sub-metering: The charger connects to the building’s common supply, with a sub-meter to track your individual usage. You reimburse the body corporate for electricity consumed. This works well when individual lot supplies aren’t accessible from the car park.

• Dedicated EV charging infrastructure: For buildings planning multiple chargers, a dedicated supply from the main switchboard (or a new supply from the grid) with load management across all chargers is the most scalable approach.

Body Corporate Approval

In Victoria, installing an EV charger on common property (which car park areas often are) requires body corporate approval. The process depends on whether the charger is on your lot or on common property:

On your lot (private car space with exclusive title): You generally have the right to install within your lot boundaries, but you may still need permission for any works that affect common property (cable routing through common areas, connection to common switchboard).

On common property: This is where most Melbourne strata EV projects stall – often because the committee has been given the wrong voting threshold. Under the Owners Corporations Act 2006 (Vic), most EV charging works can be approved by ordinary resolution: a simple majority of more than 50% of the votes cast at a general meeting. That covers works modifying existing common-property electrical infrastructure, including installing an EV backbone through the car park, and those works can be written into the owners corporation’s maintenance plan.

A special resolution (75%) is required only in narrower circumstances: where the works would significantly alter the use or appearance of common property – converting visitor parking to exclusive EV charging use is the standard example – or where the borrowing or special levies needed to fund them exceed the thresholds set in the Act.

The distinction matters. A committee that believes it needs 75% when it actually needs a simple majority will often abandon a proposal that would have passed. If you are told a special resolution is required, ask which limb of the Act is being relied on. A well-prepared proposal significantly increases your chances of approval either way.

What Your Body Corporate Proposal Should Include

Based on our experience with successful strata EV charger approvals, your proposal should cover:

• Technical scope: A detailed description of the installation, including charger location, cable routes, switchboard modifications, and any structural work (core drilling, conduit installation)
• Electrical assessment: A professional assessment of available electrical capacity and confirmation that the installation won’t compromise existing building services
• Cost breakdown: Who pays for what – installation costs, ongoing electricity, maintenance
• Safety compliance: Confirmation that the installation will comply with AS/NZS 3000 and all relevant building regulations
• Insurance implications: Confirmation from the body corporate’s insurer that coverage is maintained
• Future-proofing: How the installation considers future EV charger requests from other residents
• Installer credentials: Licensed, insured, and accredited installer details

Carlin Co provides comprehensive proposals and technical documentation for body corporate submissions. Our track record and credentials (NETCC Approved, Tesla Certified, CEC Accredited, Master Electricians) give strata committees confidence in the quality and safety of the installation.

Installation Options for Different Building Types

Low-Rise Apartments (1 – 3 Storeys)

Smaller buildings often have simpler electrical infrastructure and shorter decision-making processes. Cable runs from individual meters to car spaces are usually shorter and more straightforward. A single 7.4kW charger on your apartment’s supply is often the simplest solution.

Typical cost: $2,000 – $4,500 installed, depending on cable run length and switchboard work.

Mid-Rise Apartments (4 – 10 Storeys)

These buildings typically have more complex electrical distribution and larger body corporates. Load management becomes important if multiple residents want chargers. A shared charging infrastructure with smart load management is often more practical than individual installations.

Typical cost: $3,000 – $6,000 per charger for individual installations; $2,000 – $4,000 per point for shared infrastructure projects.

High-Rise Apartments (10+ Storeys)

Large buildings require careful electrical engineering. Existing supply capacity is often limited, and adding multiple EV chargers may require a supply upgrade from the electricity distributor. Centralised charging hubs with smart management software are typically the most practical approach.

Typical cost: Varies significantly – a comprehensive feasibility study ($1,500 – $3,000) is recommended before committing to a design approach.

Smart Charging and Load Management

For buildings with multiple EV chargers (or planning for them), load management is essential. Smart systems share available electrical capacity across all chargers, ensuring no single charger overloads the building’s supply while still fully charging all vehicles overnight.

Key features of strata-suitable charging management systems:

• Dynamic load management: Adjusts charging speed based on real-time building load
• Fair scheduling: Ensures all residents get equitable charging access
• Individual metering: Tracks energy usage per charger for accurate cost allocation
• Access control: RFID or app-based access to prevent unauthorised use
• Reporting: Provides usage data for body corporate reporting

Costs and Who Pays

Cost allocation is often the most contentious aspect of strata EV charging. Common approaches:

User pays (most common): The requesting lot owner pays all installation costs and ongoing electricity. This is the simplest model and easiest to get body corporate approval for.

Shared infrastructure + user pays: The body corporate invests in shared charging infrastructure (conduits, switchboard capacity, management system), and individual lot owners pay for their charger connection and ongoing electricity. This approach future-proofs the building and shares the infrastructure cost across all owners.

Common property investment: The body corporate funds the entire installation as a building improvement, with charging costs recovered through individual sub-metering. This treats EV charging as a building amenity that increases property values.

What Victoria’s EV-Ready Guide Means for Your Building

In August 2026 the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action published the EV-ready guide for owners corporations – a 34-page framework covering the technical, commercial and legal decisions an owners corporation has to work through before it installs anything. It is now the reference document Melbourne committees are being pointed to, and it changes what a credible proposal should look like. Here is what matters in practice.

Does the building have to install chargers now?

No. The guide is explicit that immediate installation is not always the right answer, and it names four legitimate pathways:

• Comprehensive backbone: shared infrastructure installed through the whole car park up front, so lot owners can connect chargers incrementally as demand appears
• Staged rollout: infrastructure installed first where demand is demonstrated, extended later
• Proportionate interim arrangement: one lot owner’s reasonable request accommodated now, without committing the owners corporation to building-wide works
• Deferral: a documented decision to wait, where the building’s financial position or competing capital priorities make installation disproportionate today

Deferral being a named, legitimate pathway is useful for committees under pressure – but the guide expects that decision to be reasoned and recorded, not simply avoided. The step it does treat as non-negotiable is having an EV strategy: a documented position on how the building will handle charging requests, so decisions stay consistent instead of first-come-first-served. If an early owner installs a charger in the easiest available spot, it can block the equitable building-wide solution later.

What size charging system does our building actually need?

The guide maps equipment to building size rather than to whoever asks first:

• More than 100 lots: managed Level 2 charging with dynamic load management
• 51–100 lots: the same, with managed Level 1 flagged as a proportionate interim option where individual requests arrive ahead of broader demand
• 3–50 lots: managed Level 1 systems, with Level 2 an option where faster charging is preferred and technically feasible

This is the most useful corrective in the document. Many strata EV proposals fail because a resident asks for the fastest charger available and the committee then prices a full Level 2 upgrade for a building a managed Level 1 system would serve for years. The Victorian case studies published with the guide make the gap concrete: a small Clifton Hill building met its needs with four smart general power outlets for roughly $10,000, against an estimated $60,000 for a full Level 2 upgrade. At a nine-unit Toorak building, a single lot owner funded a dedicated Level 1 circuit from their own apartment switchboard – meeting the immediate need without committing the owners corporation to anything. At Triptych Apartments a comprehensive backbone was installed despite low initial EV ownership, with load management keeping Level 2 charging inside the building’s existing electrical capacity.

Who pays for what?

The guide applies the benefit principle from the Owners Corporations Act, which draws a clear line:

• Shared – funded by all lot owners in proportion to lot liability: infrastructure that benefits the whole building, such as switchboard capacity upgrades, shared cable trays and the EV backbone itself
• Individual – funded by the user: the charger unit, the final cabling from the backbone to that car space, and the electricity consumed

One rule catches buildings out: charging electricity must be billed on actual measured consumption through a compliant metering system. A flat annual fee per EV owner is not permissible in Victoria. If your building already runs an informal “pay $X a year and charge as much as you like” arrangement, it needs to be replaced with proper metering before it turns into a dispute.

What about fire risk and vehicle-to-grid?

Fire risk derails more strata EV proposals than any technical constraint. The guide addresses it directly, citing EV FireSafe research indicating that EVs are less likely to be involved in a fire than petrol or diesel vehicles, and that compliant charging equipment installed by a registered electrical contractor does not in itself increase the risk of a battery fire. If your committee is facing this objection, that gives you a government-published source to point at rather than a supplier’s marketing claim.

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) gets the opposite treatment: the guide notes it is not currently a viable standard option for most strata buildings, and that owners corporations considering it should take specialist advice first. Our advice is the same – design the backbone so V2G is not excluded later, but do not build a 2026 business case on it.

Can the owners corporation simply refuse?

Victoria does not currently have the “right to install” protections that apply in some other states, so there is no statutory override if a resolution fails. That makes the quality of the proposal the deciding factor. In our experience preparing owners corporation submissions, proposals that fail the first time usually fail on missing electrical capacity evidence or unclear cost allocation rather than on genuine opposition – and both are fixable before the next general meeting.

This is general information about the approval framework, not legal advice. Your owners corporation manager or lawyer should confirm the resolution type required for your specific works.

Carlin Co prepares owners corporation submissions against this framework – capacity assessment, pathway recommendation, cost allocation model and the resolution type your works actually require. See also our strata electrical maintenance and body corporate electrical services, EV charger installation costs in Melbourne, current Victorian EV charger rebates and incentives, switchboard upgrades where capacity is the constraint, and commercial EV charging stations for mixed-use buildings. All work is carried out by a Melbourne master electrician, REC 33210.

Getting Started With Your Strata EV Charger

The first step is always a professional electrical assessment of your building. Carlin Co provides strata EV charging feasibility assessments that cover available electrical capacity, recommended installation approach, indicative costs, and body corporate documentation.

Call us on 0432 632 346 to discuss EV charging options for your apartment or strata building. We’ll guide you through the technical and body corporate process from start to finish.

For information on EV charger models and costs, see our EV charger installation cost guide and EV charger comparison.