Swedish Housing Developer Bonava To Make All Of Its New Parking Bays EV Ready

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The Swedish housing developer Bonava announced it will make parking bays in its new Finnish development projects EV ready. The company is the first developer in Finland to do so, and is partnering with Parking Energy Ltd. to prepare the parking bays. The bays will have electricity, cables, and a Parking Energy Quick Connector. Jiri Räsänen, Parking Energy’s CEO, answered some questions about the work for CleanTechnica.

1. Why did Bonava decide to enable all parking bays to be EV ready at all new developments?

Many new apartment buyers value EV Readiness. Even if they do not have a plug-in car at the moment, their next car may very well be. For the developer, the cost of EV Readiness is around 300 euros per parking bay. It is likely that they can get the money back multiple times – even tenfold – when selling the parking bay and the apartment with higher standards.

2. Are the new developments a mix of commercial and residential?

All the Bonava developments are residential.

3. How do you make parking bays EV ready?

EV Readiness by Parking Energy consists of three elements: a) cabling to all parking bays, b) quick connectors that allow the installation of a charger in a plug-and-play fashion, and c) a service model where the resident can order the charger directly from Parking Energy, without the hassle with the housing management. We call this Full EV Readiness, since it allows the resident to get a charger to his parking bay on a fixed price by just filling a web form.

4. How many parking bays will be at “Asunto Oy Espoon Steniuksenkumpu 1” in Espoo, Finland?

At Steniuksenkumpu, the first building on the program, has 120 parking bays. In Finland, Bonava builds around 600-800 parking bays per year. To compare, the largest single installation we have is an office building with 238 parking bays.

5. Will Bonava build any educational, community, or governmental structures with parking bays?

So far Bonava has been concentrating solely on apartment buildings. In some cases, a separate parking house may be shared with another apartment building, built by another construction company. After the deal, we have got several other construction companies in talks. They build also office buildings, be that commercial or governmental.

6. What is the process for installing an EV charger at one of your EV ready parking bays?

The resident orders the charger directly from Parking Energy on a fixed price. Our installment partner does the actual installation. It’s basically plug-and-play, takes a few minutes and doesn’t need electrician. The cabling and fuse topology has been put into our database in the construction phase, so dynamic load balance can be given as a standard option.

7. Will the chargers be a mix of private and public funded equipment?

No, all chargers are funded by Parking Energy and offered as-a-service. Monthly plans starting at 15 € (including VAT).

8. Is the vision that the EV owners would buy their own chargers, rent them, or would the building owner provide the EV chargers?

The vision is that comprehensive cabling is a one time investment for the property owner, in this case for the initial developer, with chargers for the resident as a service. When you think about it, it makes sense for both parties. Also, to keep the investment costs down in the building’s electricity distribution center, it is necessary that all chargers work seamlessly together for dynamic load balance. Without load balancing – peak shaving – one ends up paying around 5X more for the infrastructure.

Further on, we have started licensing the quick connector for charger manufacturers and have the first license contracts and more are coming. In our vision, the quick connector becomes like a USB for the plug-and-play chargers. Unlike any other cabling system, this is open to all manufacturers and operators.

We have data to show that Full EV Readiness speeds up EV adoption as much as if the charger was already in place. Yet the Full EV Readiness costs 90% less than the traditional approach of charger installations. So the system can have a major impact on EV adoption. When the big car factories get their lines running, the next bottleneck will be charging possibilities, especially at multi-apartment houses. With the licensing scheme, we can bring this as the global standard.