Right to Charge - How Wattblock can assist your Owners Corporation determine if an EV owner's application for installation of a chargepoint is “reasonable”?
The NSW "Right to Charge" legislation—primarily driven by the Strata Schemes Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill—fundamentally changes how electric vehicle charging requests are handled in apartment buildings. It shifts the legal default from requiring strict Owners Corporation permission to granting apartment owners a statutory pathway to install charging infrastructure.
Core Mechanisms of the Legislation
Why This Matters for Buildings
The main challenge of this legislation is the "ad-hoc trap." While approving the first two or three individual charger requests is easy, it quickly creates an unfair environment where the building's limited electrical headroom is exhausted on a first-come, first-served basis, leaving no power for subsequent residents unless a managed framework is put in place. Then it can become unfair on the later EV owners who are installing who need to bear a higher burden of costs for EV charging, compared to the initial EV owners who have already installed.
Are individual apartment owners in your strata scheme requesting private connections for general power outlets at their private carparking spaces or Level 2 single phase 32 Amp EV chargepoints?
Under NSW strata laws, an Owners Corporation cannot unreasonably refuse an EV charging installation. However, insufficient infrastructure capacity is a valid, legally recognized ground for refusal.
Without a centralized Load Management System (LMS), allowing even a few unmanaged 32 Amp single-phase chargers can quickly overload your building's main switchboard, risking blackouts and compromising electrical safety for all residents.
To make the best decisions regarding EV charging capacity analysis a strata scheme really needs to install permanent electricity monitoring devices for a period of 12 months to capture seasonal variations in consumption patterns e.g. use of heating in winter or air conditioning in summer. When there is a 3 month timeline to respond, this approach is not possible.
The NSW "Right to Charge" legislation—primarily driven by the Strata Schemes Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill—fundamentally changes how electric vehicle charging requests are handled in apartment buildings. It shifts the legal default from requiring strict Owners Corporation permission to granting apartment owners a statutory pathway to install charging infrastructure.
Core Mechanisms of the Legislation
- Deemed Approval (The 3-Month Rule): A lot owner can issue a formal written "installation notice" to the strata committee. If the committee does not respond with a formal, written objection within three months, the application is automatically and legally deemed approved.
- Reasonable Grounds for Refusal: Blanket bans or outright rejections by the Owners Corporation are no longer legally permitted. If a committee objects to an installation, it must provide reasonable, evidence-backed grounds in writing. Insufficient building electrical capacity or severe overloading risks are considered valid, reasonable grounds for temporary refusal.
- No Aesthetic Objections: Owners Corporations are explicitly banned from blocking EV installations based purely on aesthetics or "the look of the car park," unless the building is heritage-listed.
- Sustainability Infrastructure Status: EV charging upgrades are classified as "Sustainability Infrastructure". This lowers the voting threshold required for building-wide upgrades to a simple majority (greater than 50%) in NSW, preventing a minority of resistant owners from blocking shared infrastructure.
- Strict Cost Allocation: The lot owner requesting the charger must bear 100% of the costs. This includes installation, utility sub-metering, ongoing maintenance, and indemnifying the Owners Corporation against any common property damage.
- NCAT Dispute Pathway: If an owner believes the strata committee’s written refusal is unreasonable, they have the right to challenge it through the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT), which can overturn the committee's decision.
Why This Matters for Buildings
The main challenge of this legislation is the "ad-hoc trap." While approving the first two or three individual charger requests is easy, it quickly creates an unfair environment where the building's limited electrical headroom is exhausted on a first-come, first-served basis, leaving no power for subsequent residents unless a managed framework is put in place. Then it can become unfair on the later EV owners who are installing who need to bear a higher burden of costs for EV charging, compared to the initial EV owners who have already installed.
Are individual apartment owners in your strata scheme requesting private connections for general power outlets at their private carparking spaces or Level 2 single phase 32 Amp EV chargepoints?
Under NSW strata laws, an Owners Corporation cannot unreasonably refuse an EV charging installation. However, insufficient infrastructure capacity is a valid, legally recognized ground for refusal.
Without a centralized Load Management System (LMS), allowing even a few unmanaged 32 Amp single-phase chargers can quickly overload your building's main switchboard, risking blackouts and compromising electrical safety for all residents.
To make the best decisions regarding EV charging capacity analysis a strata scheme really needs to install permanent electricity monitoring devices for a period of 12 months to capture seasonal variations in consumption patterns e.g. use of heating in winter or air conditioning in summer. When there is a 3 month timeline to respond, this approach is not possible.
Wattblock’s Right to Charge Report for Owners Corporations provides your Owners Corporation with a report which estimates the average apartment loads (based upon real consumption data from a set of apartments in other buildings) and combines this with the actual historical common area metering data (where your strata scheme has a smart meter for the common areas) or an estimate the common area load, based upon a physical site visit where the energy consuming assets are tabulated. This can provide a view as to capacity in the building, much faster than waiting 12 months for metering data, when the Owners Corporation has to respond within 3 months. This approach is also better than a 2 week load test, which only captures consumption in one particular season, with one occupancy ratio at the time of the load test.
This allows your Owners Corporation to manage these requests responsibly. We deliver an easy to understand report that:
- Simulates the future: 100% of the private lot carspaces having an EV and attempting to charge simultaneously, on top of the estimated loads in the apartments and the common area load (real or estimated).
- Ability to review different options: What is the difference between a simulation where 100% of private lot carspaces are charging at Level 1 (10amp) vs Level 2 charging (32 amps) under a load management system
- Load Management inflection point: At either Level 1 or Level 2 charging, what is the maximum number of EV's which might be able to charge before load management, which physically stops charging for a subset of vehicles, kicks in
- Establishes Reasonable Grounds: Provides clear, professional evidence to legally justify a temporary refusal of individual, unmanaged connections.
- Outlines a Scalable Path Forward: Recommends structured options—such as installing an Load Management System (LMS) or a shared charging network—ensuring fair, future-proof EV access for every resident without compromising building safety.
Protect your infrastructure, ensure equity, and make data-driven decisions. Contact Wattblock today by emailing [email protected] for further information
Wattblock's offering is based upon 12 years of analysis of electricity consumption in apartment buildings housing over 125,000 residents and the provision of apartment baseline data to NSW Department of Climate Charge, Energy, Environment & Water.