Retrofitting condos, apartments presents tall charging hurdles

As more electric-vehicle owners demand chargers in their spaces, the cost of installations, administrative hang-ups and the sheer scale of the challenge risk stalling EV adoption by the millions of Canadians currently living in apartments and condos, EV charging and automotive experts say.

It begins and ends with power.

When called out to an apartment or condominium to assess how best to retrofit a parking garage with a bank of electric-vehicle chargers, contractor Signature Electric must first determine how much surplus power the building has at its disposal.

Buildings often have a small amount of excess capacity, said owner Mark Marmer, but far from enough to power a large series of EV chargers. To bridge the gap, he relies on technology that uses the building’s available electricity “as carefully as we possibly can” by governing the amount of power EVs can draw from the building and distributing it between each charger.

The workaround, known as dynamic load management (DLM), lets buildings designed for an earlier era add the modern technology, though it is just one part of the wider challenge of retrofitting Canadian multiunit residential buildings (MURBs) for EV charging.

On costs, Marmer said, before a charger can go in, installing a new electrical panel, new wiring and some form of metering is typically required. For a single space, this work could cost $3,000 to $4,000 in the Toronto area, where Markham, Ont.-based Signature Electric operates. And that assumes the parking spot is in an accessible area.

“You might be on the P5 level, and the nearest panel might be on the P1 level, and that could take $1,000 worth of coring to get down there,” Marmer said.

While all installations will run into the thousands of dollars, building owners can cut per-space costs by installing a larger electrical panel that can serve numerous vehicles, Marmer said. A simple charger then costs about $800, he said, while price tags can double for a version enabled for DLM.

NOT BUILT FOR EV NEEDS

Powering the stations is a separate challenge.

Because the average MURB in North America is more than 40 years old, many buildings are simply not designed to accommodate vehicle chargers siphoning off power, said Carter

Li, CEO of the charging technology firm Swtch Energy.

“If you were to try to integrate with a 2022 building, with their building energy systems, it’s actually pretty easy,” Li said. “But how do you do it with a 1960s multi-family apartment? That’s the challenge.”

Li’s Toronto-based company designs the software that powers DLM and builds the hardware to tap into “ancient” electrical panels to ensure they can communicate with modern technology.

The software takes advantage of a mismatch between the amount of time a vehicle spends parked and the amount of time it spends charging.

The average parking time in residential buildings is about 11 hours, Li said, while the average time needed for a full charge is typically a little more than three hours.

“That gives a lot of flexibility in terms of how you can optimize,” he said. “If you slow down charging for people, they’re going to get less energy, but ... you can make sure that everybody gets a little charge at the end of the day or at the end of their dwell period.”

Swtch’s software is currently powering about 2,100 stations in more than 300 buildings across North America, mainly in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Boston and New York City.

HOMES NEED HELP

But the company and its competitors will need to scale up considerably to meet MURB charging demand as consumers shift to EVs. Despite growth in public charging networks, most analyses show that EV drivers do 80 per cent of their charging at home. According to the 2021 census, 4.3 million people, or about 29 per cent, of all Canadian families live in condos or apartments.

With such a large portion of the population affected, more government attention is needed to tackle the issue, said David Adams, president of Global Automakers of Canada, which represents overseas automakers in Canada.

“The retrofitting of older buildings and condos is a real problem,” Adams said. “It’s obviously way more expensive than doing it when the building is built, and there are lots of hoops that I think tenants need to go through — even convincing building management; in some cases other tenants, if it’s going to impact them — to undertake the retrofit.”

On tenant rights, Ontario has made some early progress, Marmer said.

In a rewrite of the Condominium Act in 2018, the province improved the process for unit owners to demand EV chargers by eliminating a condo board’s ability to dismiss a request if it cannot provide a reasonable alternative.

“Almost exclusively, ‘no’ could not be the answer,” Marmer said. “This changed the conversation overnight because now boards had to start listening.”

Between the legislation and the growth in EV sales, the retrofit market is beginning to pick up, Marmer said.

FEDS TAKE CHARGE

Government support is also available. For MURBs, the federal Zero Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Program (ZEVIP) covers half of charger installation projects valued at up to $5 million, or up to $5,000 per vehicle connector.

Adams acknowledged the funding but said a simpler process would make the program more accessible. Currently, the funding is available through a request for proposals. Program administrators accept proposals during four windows each year.

“It’s like everything else with going down this pathway,” Adams said. “It all kind of needs to be done yesterday.”

Li said the ZEVIP funding is working as an incentive for companies weighing charging projects. Knowing the government is footing half the bill today — and likely will not forever — gives property managers a reason to not delay their investments, he said.

Putting a charger in every parking space today looks like a tall order, Li said, but the upgrades look more achievable in stages.

“That timeline is probably 20, 30 years,” he said. “Incrementally, I think people will be more and more willing to justify the cost.”