Case Study: Condo and Workplace Charger Deployment and Utilization Growth

Hypercharge helps strata and property managers elevate the experiences of residents, commercial tenants, and workplaces through convenient and reliable electric vehicle charging.

In 2022, we partnered with a prominent strata and property management firm that oversees a diverse portfolio of properties throughout British Columbia’s Greater Vancouver Area, including condominiums, commercial properties, and mixed-used developments.

Over a two-year period, we deployed more than 30 Level 2 Hypercharge charging stations across five properties, delivering customized charging solutions to meet the unique needs of each building. Our team of experts worked closely with trusted electricians to optimize the power capacity on every property, and the management company opted to apply user-based charging fees to recoup the cost of electricity, as well as operating and maintenance costs.

The results have been overwhelmingly positive, with significant increases in the number of charging sessions and revenue earned. Let’s delve deeper into two of the installation projects to learn more about their users’ charging habits and how much the chargers’ popularity has grown over time.

One of the management company’s first projects focused on EV-enhanced workplaces – the second-most common location for EV charging after home charging.

Hypercharge installed nine Level 2 chargers in a state-of-the-art office building that offers both traditional office space and coworking, virtual office, and flexible meeting spaces.

Supported by BC Hydro and CleanBC’s EV charging rebate, the chargers have boosted tenant and visitor satisfaction while supporting the building’s LEED® Gold Certification.

To understand usage patterns for these sample chargers, we turned to Quantev™ Operations Suite, a cutting-edge, cloud-based platform that offers detailed data tracking, real-time monitoring, and in-depth analysis.

With Quantev, managers can organize users into different groups—tenants, regular visitors, and guests, for example—to set customized and dynamic charging fees and process payments directly through the chargers or the Hypercharge Driver Mobile app.

Quantev’s advanced reporting capabilities produced the following snapshot of an average charging session:

*Estimate based on 4 kms per kW for Tesla Model 3.

On the residential front, the management company installed four Level 2 chargers in a striking mixed-use high-rise located in a Lower Mainland city.

Rising more than 40 storeys, with three commercial storeys and more than 340 homes, the building boasts a number of luxe amenities, including a rooftop garden, large private lounge, barbecue area, and high-end fitness studio.

In keeping with typical home charging habits, Quantev reports that the average charging session for our mixed-use example is longer than our workplace building example, resulting in greater driving distance gained and more revenue earned per charge.

*Estimate based on 4 kms per kW for Tesla Model 3.

While both the workplace and mixed-use properties saw increases in charger usage and corresponding revenue over time, the multi-use building saw particularly impressive leaps over its first three years of EV charging.

Comparing the chargers’ first full year of operation to the last, Quantev calculated the following increases.

Is this astounding increase typical? Usage trends and charging habits can vary considerably from one location to another, but Hypercharge generally sees an upward trend in usage over time.

For example, EV charging can be a highly effective way to attract EV owners to apartment and condo buildings while enabling existing residents to go electric.

For comparison, we delved into the data for another mixed-use building managed by our partner in the same city.

Once again, four Level 2 chargers were installed, this time serving a 32-storey building with 228 homes and similar amenities to our first mixed-use example.

Since these chargers have been operating for just 16 months, we asked Quantev to compare their first full month of operation, in September 2024, to the same month a year later and found that the figures had already doubled.

These sometimes dramatic increases in usage are why Hypercharge recommends futureproofing EV charging sites by oversizing the electrical infrastructure to accommodate additional chargers with minimal expense.

With a Hypercharge EV Ready Plan, strata management and property managers receive an upfront expert assessment of the site’s current capacity, an Electrical Planning Reports (EPR), and detailed cost estimates for short and longer-term plans.