Apartment Block / Estate Charging

Firblog

Anyone use apartment charging that has a chargepoint operator looking after it?

Is it, reliable? well run? what do they charge per Kwh?

Cheers

zg3409

Why do you ask? The answer will vary by site depending on the contract terms, if management company want a cut of income, if they have enough chargers on site, if they have marked dedicated spaces for each apartment and if the tenants can ask for a charger for their spot.

There is some special grants but I suspect a proper managed supported system would be relatively expensive and around the same as petrol prices.

If you are looking for a list of companies there are 3 or 4 big names with experience. Ideally you SHOULD NOT contact management company until you have an informal proposal with advice from the specialists and ideally bring such a proposal and business plan to the annual meeting. Management companies have a tendency to say no as much as possible.

Firblog

I'm doing a bit of scoping out what the options are for the estate I live on. I've been in contact with the SEAI and have told them that we'd prob prefer dedicated charge point for each unit, but they asked why not CPO

1. More expensive to charge
2. Everyone loses their dedicated parking spot.
3. Prob have to increase number of chargepoints every few years as more residents change over.

Just wondered what other people's experiences and perspectives would be on the matter.

liamog

One thing to be wary of with using charge point operators is how the tariff's look. My old apartment block (or at least the one next door to me) used Pinergy PowerUp. They charged 49c/kWh at all times of the day. I'd much prefer CPO's who can handle time of use billing to encourage residents to overnight charge instead of just plugging in when they get home

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121260652#Comment_121260652

I imagine the main disadvantages for dedicated chargers per unit is the much higher costs if installation (every charger needs to wire back to that unit's meter) and the possibility for people plugging into the wrong charger

Last time I lived in an apartment with allocated spaces there was enough trouble with people parking in the wrong spots, imagine the accusations of people stealing electricity

So everyone would have to buy chargers with an RFID card reader or something

I do agree with the advantages you've stated, I think you just need to be prepared for some steep initial costs

One thing which might work well could be a sort of two step process

Initially, the spaces could be cabled for individual chargers, but the cable just terminates in some ducting. This might keep the initial costs to the management company down

Residents could then "buy" a charger from the management company and install it and claim the SEAI grant. They then get their own charger to use

The reason I'm saying they buy the charger from the management company is that it means they'll all be compatible with whatever load balancing system is in place, if there is one

Probably the tricky part is what happens when someone moves out. IMO their charger should stay behind, but you know there'll be a few people trying to take it with them or demanding a refund

Firblog

The SEAI offer grants of 'up to 80%' for apartment blocks/housing estates, so higher installation costs may not work out to be too high per unit.

I think that the mgt company should control the physical works and hardware from meter to the the charging pedestal; each household can pick their own charging unit if they wish, claiming individual grant for same; no point installing a charger if householder is not going to get an EV for 5/10 years - but the infrastructure will be in place for when the do change.

innrain

Our OMC is in the process to applying for the grant. We are at the stage where we have the proposal ready and wait for AGM to sanction it.

SEAI wants CPO's to deal with. While I agree in most cases would be cheaper to have individual chargers, CPO's eliminate a lot of unknowns, as pointed above, but at a price that might make the whole setup unsustainable.

CPO's would need to connect the chargers on the landlord supply which basically means additional capacity while installing it from apartment meters would keep the required capacity unchanged. In the best case scenario, additional capacity would mean higher connection charges, in the worst, additional hardware works from ESBN (good luck with it). Most of the pricing models I have seen they add some % on top of price charged by the OMC, which

We invited CPO's to come and make an offer. Only very few responded so we had to choose from a very shortlist. Some didn't bother writing a proposal. From those who did bother they were geared to selling the highest margin solution not necessarily the best suited one. The property management agent was pretty useless in the whole endeavor so unless you have a couple of directors who know what they are doing, in the board of OMC you're toasted. That is because after all the documentation is in place someone has to foot the bill which could be substantial depending on your proposal. So you'll need the OMC to pay from some fund and hope they get reimbursed by the SEAI grant. Which is up to 80% which means not really 80% because they have a lot of restrictions in place. All in all even if they cover the whole 80%, the 20% should come from somewhere and justifying the cost would require some convincing.

From the pricing model I have seen, I expect at the end the price per kWh to be higher than I pay now at public chargers which kinda cooled my jets.

Firblog

Yeah, it seems to me that even if the SEAI paid the full 80% grant, us paying the other 20% would be just us paying to help the the CPO to make money..

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121264993#Comment_121264993

It's a real concern I have for future charging solutions, I don't want a situation where a private homeowner is able to leverage time of use tariff's to get very cheap or even paid for charging thanks to smart electricity tariff's versus a renter in a development with a locked in CPO that's billing 50c/kWh with a contract that's between the OMC and CPO giving the consumer zero choice. Operating the same vehicle the same way shouldn't come with a running cost that could be €200/year versus €2000/year based on whether you are privileged to control your electricity meter.

Firblog

Very similar to home heating; calor owns the gas supply infrastructure in my estate, no competition from any other supplier, pay their price or stop using gas...

zg3409

I saw this set up in a brand new estate near me. Parallel parking spaces and infrastructure for one charger per space. However it looks to be wired in series, the same single phase cable looped in and out of each spot. Thus no trunking under public footpath into nearby houses and their home esb meter. There is also no data cable for load sensing, load sharing. In some places the cable is already damaged by car wheels. In other places the cars bumpers are over the brown stone area meaning if a charger was installed over the hole it's likely to be hit regularly by cars struggling to parallel park. One of the new home owners has an EV but no sign of a charger.

I suspect for these to work the "management company" would need to get a contractor to wire these up to a separate esb meter, and each charger would need a billing system with associated high costs. I am unclear if the parking spaces are assigned, although it looks like there is one space for each home, aligned with each home in a terrace set up. It would have made far more sense to assign parking spots to each home and run trunking into each home. I doubt these cables will ever be used.

joe1303l

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121537342#Comment_121537342

More likely that cabling is for lighting.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121537342#Comment_121537342

Are they wired to the house or to the main board?

no need for a data cable if at the main board. It should have been sized for the number of points it feeds

no need for separate meter. Get a company like easy go to install them, with an rfid and charge a minimum premium. Like cost + 2 c/kwh