Yes — apartment charging works as an operator business line when it is built as an agreement, not as a charger sale. The operator funds and installs units in the complex’s shared parking, bills residents through its own chosen platform, and carries maintenance, under a written agreement with the property owner. The economics then stand or fall on the agreement lines and the site’s own demand evidence — not on any market average.
Key Takeaways
- Apartment charging is a business line when an agreement assigns access, funding, billing and maintenance — not when chargers are merely installed.
- Assigned versus shared bays is the property’s decision, and it changes pricing, access and unit count.
- Per-kWh resident billing is a jurisdiction confirmation, obtained in writing before pricing is published.
- Demand evidence comes from the property itself: count the EVs in the car park before quoting the network.
The Business-Line Table: Element, Decision, Agreement Line
| Element | Who decides | The agreement line to settle |
|---|---|---|
| Site access and term | Property owner grants; operator accepts | How many years the operator may use the bays, and what ends the arrangement |
| Funding and ownership | Operator, property, or split | Who pays for units and installation, who owns them, and who removes them at the end |
| Assigned or shared bays | The property | Whether chargers sit on assigned resident bays or a shared pool residents book or share |
| Electricity supply and recovery | The property’s supply; the operator’s billing model | Whose meter the chargers draw from, and how the energy cost is recovered |
| Resident billing and pricing | The operator, inside local rules | The price structure residents see and the platform that collects it |
| Maintenance and faults | The operator | Who residents report a fault to, and the response the operator commits to in writing |
| Records and reporting | Both parties | Which session and usage records the property receives, and how often |
Where the Money Moves
The resident is the paying customer, but the structure of the payment is a choice. The common shapes are per-session or per-kWh billing collected by the operator’s platform, a flat arrangement folded into the property’s own fees, or free charging the property funds as an amenity. Which shapes are open depends on local rules on reselling electricity and on metering: whether an operator may bill residents per kWh at all is a written confirmation to obtain for the property’s jurisdiction, never an assumption. On the cost side, installation anchors exist — U.S. DOE-cited figures put public Level 2 at about $3,500 of equipment plus $2,500 of installation per connector — and electricity is priced from the building’s own bill; the U.S. commercial average of 14.53 cents per kWh is context, not your tariff. Utilisation is read from the site’s own platform records once running; before that, estimate it from the property’s own evidence — the manager can count today’s EVs in the car park.
The resident side of the same car park is covered in our guide to apartment and condo charging in shared parking; this article is the operator’s side.
Hardware for the Resident Car Park
The workhorse shape for shared resident parking is a dual-connector AC station: the EV-AC03201T serves two bays from one floor-standing unit — two Type 2 connectors sharing up to 43 kW (22 kW per connector), OCPP 1.6J, RFID access and an IP54 enclosure. Its stated ability to allocate power dynamically applies between its own two connectors; site-wide load management across many units is a separate project decision, never a claim made for a single station. The unit’s touchscreen is a display: resident billing runs on the platform the operator appoints, not on the charger. For single-bay or wall-mounted positions, the EV-ACT3204PE 22 kW three-phase wallbox (tethered Type 2 cable, RFID and app, IP66, CE) gives the same per-user access record. EVDANCE is a Shenzhen manufacturer founded in 2011 with a 3-year standard warranty. Apartment projects start through our residential charging or commercial charging pages, or via contact us.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who pays for the electricity at an apartment complex?
Whoever the agreement says. Usually the chargers draw from the building’s supply and the cost is recovered through the operator’s resident billing or the property’s fees. The recovery route has to match the property’s metering and the local position on reselling electricity — confirm both in writing.
Are assigned or shared bays better for an operator?
The property decides, and the choice changes the business: assigned bays mean one resident per charger and a simple access list; shared bays spread fewer units across more residents and need booking or access rules.
Can an operator charge residents per kWh?
In some places yes, in others billing has to follow a different structure — metering and resale rules vary by jurisdiction. Treat per-kWh resident billing as a written confirmation from the local authority or utility, obtained before the pricing page is published.
Related Reading
- Apartment and Condo EV Charging: Solutions for Shared Parking
- RFID and User Management for Shared EV Chargers
- How to Charge an EV When You Live in an Apartment
