Key Takeaways
- Multi-tenant EV charging requires careful planning around shared electrical supplies and billing
- Smart load management enables more chargers to be installed without expensive supply upgrades
- Landlords and tenants need clear agreements on installation costs, electricity billing, and maintenance
- Future-proofing cable routes during initial installation saves significant cost later
- Wire Now designs and installs multi-tenant EV charging solutions across London, Hertfordshire, and Essex
What Are the Challenges of Multi-Tenant EV Charging?
Multi-tenant commercial buildings — office parks, business centres, retail parks, and mixed-use developments — face unique challenges when deploying EV charging. The main issues are shared electrical supplies with limited spare capacity, the need to meter and bill individual tenants, unclear ownership and maintenance responsibilities, and competing demand from different businesses within the building.
These challenges are solvable with proper planning. The key is to design the infrastructure from the outset rather than adding chargers piecemeal.
How Does Load Management Work?
Smart load management is critical for multi-tenant sites because it allows you to install more chargers than the raw electrical supply could simultaneously power. The system monitors total building demand in real time and dynamically adjusts the power delivered to each charger.
For example, a building with 50kW of spare capacity could support:
- Without load management: 7 × 7kW chargers (49kW)
- With load management: 15–20 × 7kW chargers (dynamically shared)
This works because not all vehicles need maximum charging simultaneously. Vehicles that arrive early in the day can charge at full rate, while later arrivals charge at reduced rates — but all vehicles achieve a full charge during a typical working day.
Who Pays for the Chargers — Landlord or Tenant?
There are three common models for funding EV charging in multi-tenant buildings:
Landlord-funded: The building owner installs and owns the charging infrastructure as a building amenity. The cost is recovered through service charges or as a differentiator that supports higher rents. This model works well for buildings seeking to attract quality tenants.
Tenant-funded: Individual tenants install and own chargers in their allocated parking spaces. The landlord provides consent and may install shared cable routes. This approach can be messy if tenants leave and take their chargers.
Third-party operator: A charge point operator installs, owns, and operates the infrastructure at no cost to the landlord or tenants. Users pay per kWh at the operator's rates. This is increasingly common for larger sites.
How Do You Bill Individual Tenants?
Per-tenant billing requires networked chargers with user authentication and metering capability. Common approaches:
- RFID card access: Each tenant has cards for their employees; usage is metered and billed monthly
- App-based billing: Users authenticate via a smartphone app and pay per kWh
- Direct metering: Each charger has a sub-meter; consumption is billed through the service charge
The charger management platform provides reports showing consumption per user, per charger, and per tenant, making the billing process straightforward.
How Do You Future-Proof the Installation?
Installing cable routes and containment during the initial deployment is far cheaper than retrofitting later. Even if you only install 5 chargers today, running cable ducts to support 20 future positions costs a fraction of what it would to dig up the car park later.
Future-proofing considerations:
- Install cable containment (ducts, trunking, trays) to all potential charger locations
- Specify a distribution board with spare ways for future circuits
- Include a load management system that can scale to the full planned deployment
- Leave physical space near the main intake for potential supply upgrades
- Document the as-built installation for future reference
What DNO Notifications Are Required?
Any EV charger installation must comply with BS 7671 and may require notification to your Distribution Network Operator. For small installations (1–3 chargers on an existing supply), a simple notification may suffice. Larger deployments may require a formal application for additional capacity.
Wire Now handles all DNO communications as part of our installation service, ensuring your deployment complies with connection requirements.
Get a free multi-tenant EV charging design →
Part of our [Commercial EV Charging Guide](/blog/commercial-ev-charging-installation-guide-uk) series.
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