Guide: Installing wallboxes for your housing cooperative

Increasingly more residents are asking for electric vehicle charging at their housing cooperatives. By offering electric vehicle charging, you become an attractive landlord while also contributing to the transition to a fossil-free society. Here, we provide all the information you need to get started with your installation.

Canvass residents and review financing plan
Before initiating a wallbox installation, it’s important to canvass the residents to gauge their interest. Following this, you should create a clear plan for financing the installation so as to ensure a smooth process that doesn’t burden the cooperative’s finances too heavily.

Check the conditions
We’re happy to join your electrician in a visit to your property to assess the scope of the installation. To simplify the process, it’s helpful if you can provide drawings of the building and the electrical system, as then we can immediately say whether the existing fuse, wiring and power supply are sufficient or need to be strengthened. Also consider how the internet connection looks like in the property, for example if the wallboxes are to be connected via WiFi or LAN (Ethernet).

Apply for a grant from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency
We recommend that you apply for a Ladda bilen vehicle charging grant from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. The grant can cover up to fifty percent of the cost of the materials and the installation. Applications are submitted via the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s website, where you can also read more about the grant (both the application and the information are in Swedish). There you can either download an application form or use your BankID to apply directly.

Decide on a billing model and a provider
Before the installation, it’s also important to decide how you plan to bill residents for charging their vehicles. The most common solution is to bill the costs individually together with the rent/monthly fee. You should also choose a reliable provider to operate and maintain the charging system for a better user experience.

Prioritise safety
Many different wallboxes are easily available on the market today, so it’s especially important to prioritise safety. We recommend having a discussion with your electrician to ensure that you get a safe and future-proof solution for your property. This is especially important if you’re installing multiple wallboxes so as to ensure that the load on the power supply isn’t greater than what the property can handle and that the wallboxes have comprehensive integrated protection.

Scalable as needs grow
Predicting just how many wallboxes it’ll take to cover the needs of your housing cooperative is practically impossible. However, with our GARO Entity Pro wallbox, you can scale things up as needs grow. Thanks to our smart bracket, you can start out with a smaller number of wallboxes and then, as more residents in your housing cooperative choose to drive electric, easily scale up the system. 

Future-proof your cooperative
Hopefully, your cooperative will have its wallboxes for a long time to come. Given this, be sure to choose wallboxes that can be updated with any smart functions developed in the future to avoid the need to replace them after just a few years. The software in GARO Entity is ready for functions such as Vehicle-to-Grid and Plug & Charge, which are probably just two of the many new technologies that future-proof wallboxes should be ready to support.   

After the installation
Once the installation has been completed and you maybe have more questions or need support, you can simply contact your electrician and provider for assistance.