Charging in an apartment building is harder than charging on your own driveway. You share the electrical installation with your neighbours, and a charge point draws a lot of power. It can be done, as long as you tackle it in the right order.
Start with the building manager
A charge point in the shared car park affects the installation of the whole building. So talk to the building manager (the syndic) first, before you order a wallbox. Ask:
- How big is the building’s connection, and how much is left over after normal use?
- Is there already a proposal or study for a shared solution?
- Where does the cable run from the meter cupboard to your parking space, and who decides on the route?
- Is your parking space privately owned or shared?
Those answers tell you straight away whether you only need a wallbox next to your own meter or whether something shared has to happen first.
Your right to a charge point
In some cases you can have a charge point installed at your own parking space as an owner or tenant, at your own cost, even if the other owners hesitate. The exact rules depend on the region and on your situation, and they change. Ask the manager or a lawyer what applies now, and check the current conditions before you decide.
Two ways to install
- Your own wallbox at your private space, connected to your own meter.
- A shared installation for the whole building, with load management and individual metering per user.
The first option is the quickest to arrange. The second costs more at the start, but you don’t have to begin again with every new driver. If four or five residents drive electric in a few years, a joint plan often makes more sense than five separate cables through the same basement.
Smart load management in practice
A building has one connection with limited capacity. Say 20 kW is free for charging and ten residents plug in at the same time in the evening. Each charge point then gets 2 kW on average. Over an eight-hour night, that is 16 kWh.
What does that mean for your car? If it uses 17 kWh per 100 km, you add well over 90 km of range. For a normal working week of short trips that is usually enough. If most neighbours charge later or not every day, you automatically get more power, because the system shares out whatever is free.
With load management, one shared connection can still give everyone a full or nearly full battery. It only becomes a squeeze if you drive a very long way every day.
Who pays for the electricity?
With a private installation on your own meter, you simply pay your own energy supplier. If there is no meter at your parking space, the consumption still has to be measured separately somewhere. That can be done with a sub-meter or a charging platform that bills per user.
A worked example with an assumed price: if your kWh costs 0.30 euro at home, the 16 kWh above cost 4.80 euro. Use your own tariff, because it differs per contract and changes over time.
Common mistakes
- Ordering or installing a wallbox before the manager knows about it.
- Using an extension lead or ordinary socket in the car park. It isn’t meant for hours of heavy load, see our piece on the risks of an emergency cable.
- Looking only at the wallbox’s power and not at what the building can handle.
- Forgetting that the installation has to be inspected by an approved inspection body.
When this doesn’t apply to you
If you have no own or fixed parking space in the building, you can’t install a charge point there. A public charger nearby is then your regular place to charge, and sometimes you can request one from the municipality. Read our tips on charging without a driveway and how to request a charger on your street.
Want to know what a wallbox offers in general? Read our piece on home charging or look at the map of chargers near you.