Strata EV Charging · Apartments · Melbourne
Resident-only EV charging for Melbourne apartment buildings — designed, installed, and managed by one Melbourne electrical contractor. Compliant, scalable, and built for staged rollout. We handle the feasibility report, the install, the resident billing, and the 15-year lifecycle so the owners corporation doesn’t have to.
Why strata EV is different
Apartment and strata charging is not just a charger on a wall. The hard part is shared electrical infrastructure, owners corporation approval, cable runs through common property, metering, billing, and planning for the next residents who will want chargers later. Get any of these wrong and the whole arrangement falls apart at the next property sale.
Committee-ready written reports covering switchboard capacity, cable routes, metering options, charger locations and staged upgrade recommendations under AS/NZS 3000:2018.
One dedicated EV distribution board with dynamic load management. The first charger funds the infrastructure. Every charger after that is straightforward to add.
EV charging for smaller strata sites and townhouse complexes where power, parking and ownership boundaries need to be checked first.
Annual inspections, firmware updates, hardware replacement under warranty, and a clear end-of-life path. Not install-and-walk-away.
What residents pay
At Carbon’s published $0.50/kWh strata rate, a typical Melbourne EV travelling 15,000 km/year and using 16 kWh/100km consumes 2,400 kWh/year. That works out to around $1,200/year for residents charging at home in the building. Public DC fast-charging in Australia currently sits in the $0.53–$0.79/kWh range — meaning the same driver would pay $1,272–$1,896/year if they relied on the public network. The strata rate saves residents in the order of $360–$696/year compared with the public networks they would otherwise use, and the resident never has to leave the building to charge.
Verified public DC pricing · June 2026
Tesla Supercharger AU $0.32–$0.79 · Evie 50kW ~$0.74, 350kW $0.79 · AmpCharge $0.75 · NRMA $0.69–$0.99 · BP Pulse peak $0.79 · Chargefox ultra-rapid ~$0.99. Pricing varies by site, network membership, and time of day. Verified against operator pricing pages, June 2026.
Note: $0.50/kWh is the rate Carbon recommends, adopted by the owners corporation at general meeting. A $0.08/kWh rebate flows back to the OC — around $4,500/year on 25 active chargers — which the committee can direct to future chargers, common-property electrical works, or general maintenance fund top-up. The committee can adjust the resident rate up at any future general meeting if priorities change.
Resident billing
One of the hardest parts of strata EV charging isn’t the electrical work — it’s making sure each resident pays only for the power they use. Carbon Group bills each resident directly under the ESC General Exemption Order 2022 (Order VD8), so the owners corporation doesn’t collect, hold or remit charging revenue, and doesn’t manage kWh calculations or invoice chasing.
Smart chargers log the exact energy used by each resident, metered at the charger. No guesswork, no shared bill splitting, no arguments at the general meeting.
Every invoice shows four lines in the same order: energy used (kWh × rate), Carbon management fee, GST, and total. Itemised, defensible, and no hidden markups.
Carbon’s recommended $0.50/kWh resident rate is adopted by the OC at general meeting. $0.08 of every kWh flows back to the owners corporation — around $4,500/year on 25 active chargers — for the committee to direct.
Total kWh delivered, active chargers, uptime, fault response times, and recommended changes for the year ahead — delivered to the committee every year.
How it works in practice: Each charger meters the resident’s session and bills them direct each month. Residents can stop using the service at any time without penalty, and the infrastructure stays with the building when they sell. The committee receives an annual report covering total kWh delivered, active chargers, uptime, fault response times, and recommended changes for the year ahead.
Built to last
This is the single biggest difference between Carbon’s model and one-off charger installs. Under Carbon’s default, the EV distribution board, sub-mains, and circuits all sit on common property under owners corporation ownership. When apartments change hands, the charger stays, the billing arrangement stays, and the new owner gets the benefit automatically — locked in through a registered owners corporation rule lodged with Land Use Victoria. No renegotiation, no risk of removal, no orphaned equipment. The arrangement is built to last the building’s 15-year service life and beyond.
Where we work
Based in Croydon, Carbon Group Electrical services apartments, units and townhouse complexes across Melbourne and surrounds. Specific service area is qualified at first enquiry based on building size, complexity, and current crew capacity — we’d rather tell you up-front than overcommit.
Southbank · Docklands · CBD
Hawthorn · Camberwell · Kew
Box Hill · Doncaster · Balwyn
Ringwood · Croydon · Mitcham
Not sure if your building is suitable?
Call 0468 403 129Simple process
Suburb, number of parking spaces, whether the owners corporation has discussed EV charging yet, and any existing chargers on site.
We inspect the main switchboard, meter area, parking layout, cable pathways and constraints. Distributor supply capacity confirmed before any commitment.
Written report covering switchboard capacity, cable routes, charger locations, staged costs, and the OC rule pathway. Designed to be forwarded inside the committee.
The OC’s strata manager and lawyer handle the special resolution and the registered owners corporation rule. We coordinate, but the OC owns the legal process.
Electrical work completed and certified under REC 35801. Certificates of Electrical Safety lodged with Energy Safe Victoria. Billing platform activated for residents.
Customer stories
Common questions
Carbon’s recommended resident rate is $0.50/kWh — well below current Australian public DC fast-charging pricing ($0.53–$0.79/kWh as at June 2026). At that rate, a typical Melbourne EV driver saves $360–$696/year compared with relying on public chargers, and never has to leave the building to charge. A $0.08/kWh rebate flows back to the owners corporation (around $4,500/year on 25 active chargers), giving the OC a material return to point to at general meeting.
The owners corporation. Carbon’s default model is OC-owned, Carbon-managed — the OC funds and owns the EV distribution board and circuits, and Carbon designs, installs, and runs the billing platform. Funding comes from the OC’s existing maintenance fund, a special levy across all lots, or a payment plan from a specialist strata lender that spreads the cost over up to five years. The committee chooses with their strata manager.
They don’t pay for individual chargers — only for the shared building infrastructure (the EV distribution board, sub-main, and load management). That infrastructure is a building improvement that lifts every lot’s long-term value, in the same way that adding a lift or upgrading a switchboard does. Owners who actually want a charger pay separately for their own charger and circuit.
Yes, but most don’t want to. Carbon bills each resident directly — tracking kWh usage at the charger, applying the resident rate adopted by the OC at general meeting, and issuing itemised four-line monthly invoices. The committee receives an annual report and doesn’t need to manage any of the admin. Operates under the ESC General Exemption Order 2022 (Order VD8), so the OC takes no on-selling risk — the OC does not collect, hold, or remit charging revenue.
Every charging session is metered at the charger to the nearest watt-hour and tied to the resident’s account. The rate adopted by the owners corporation is applied automatically, so there’s no manual calculation and no dispute. Residents can dispute a session through the resident onboarding pack process at any time.
Strata EV is priced in two tiers so the shared cost and the per-charger cost are visible separately. Tier 1 (building infrastructure) — the EV distribution board, sub-main, dynamic load management, distributor liaison and Certificates of Electrical Safety — sits in the order of $25,000–$65,000 one-time, depending on switchboard capacity and sub-main length. Tier 2 (per-charger add) — the charger, RCD, circuit run and commissioning — sits in the order of $2,500–$5,500 per charger, depending on hardware and circuit length. These are indicative ranges, not a quote. Final pricing is always after a site survey.
The infrastructure stays. The EV distribution board, sub-mains and circuits sit on common property under owners corporation ownership, locked in through a registered OC rule lodged with Land Use Victoria. When apartments change hands, the new owner gets the benefit automatically — same arrangement, same billing terms. No renegotiation, no risk of removal.
Yes — that’s the default. One dedicated EV distribution board is installed first (the infrastructure), then chargers are added one at a time as residents need them. The first charger funds the infrastructure; every charger after is straightforward to add.
Yes. Every job certified under REC 35801, with Certificates of Electrical Safety lodged with Energy Safe Victoria.
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