Condo Adviser Episode 46: EV charging stations in condos

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Hello, hello. Good evening, everybody. My name is Rod Escayola. And I'm your condominium lawyer with Gowling WLG. And I have the usual crew. And I have a star guest tonight. Can't wait to introduce him to you.

So we have the usual suspects, of course. We have Graeme MacPherson and Nailah Ramsoomair, the two condo geeks at Gowling WLG. But tonight we're going to take a bit of a back seat. There's a bit of a pun, I guess, because it's about EV charging stations today. So we're going to take a bit of a back seat because you want to hear from Adam Firchuk. He's a key account manager with MetroEV. Did I get that right?

So MetroEV has been, I guess, in business for about 15 years or so. They're in the business of installing-- amongst other things-- installing EV charging stations-- amongst other places-- in condominiums. They've probably installed something over 3,000 EV charging stations so far across Ontario, Ottawa, GTA, elsewhere. And so we are super lucky and super pumped, Adam, to have you with us tonight to explain the various solutions that exist out there. So welcome, Adam.

ADAM FIRCHUK: Thank you, Rodrigue.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: OK, everybody, let's get started. But before I do, I need to do my usual housekeeping here. Let me see if I have this somewhere in my notes or if I'm going to do it by heart. Well, I don't have it in my notes. That's fantastic. OK, so let's do the usual kind of warnings, i guess.

This webinar is Ontario centric. And so if you watch this from elsewhere, you got to keep this in mind that we're going to be talking about regulation, legislation, so we're focused on Ontario. It is being recorded on the 3 of April. April, can you believe it? Happy Easter, everybody. So the 3 of April.

And so if you watch this 2024-- that's an important element. So if you watch this webinar later on, just keep in mind that some regulation, some information may have changed, especially when we're dealing with EV charging stations because the technology is changing and improving every day, every week, every month. So just keep that in mind.

Graeme has turned on the chat functionality, and so feel free to chat amongst yourselves quietly. If you do have a question that you want to answer, it's probably best to put it in the Q&A because otherwise we may lose sight of it if you put it in the chat.

It may just like keep scrolling up. So if you have a question that you want to answer, just use the Q&A. And if we have time, we will get to that. And that's about it. Did I forget anything? Graeme I don't have my notes about my usual sort of where the emergency exits are located and how to fasten your seat belt.

GRAEME MACPHERSON: No, I think after 46 episodes, you've got it memorized.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: OK, perfect. Wonderful. OK, well, let's just dive in. So as I said, tonight we're going to be talking about charging stations and how they are increasingly being installed in condominiums across the province.

There's all sorts of programs in place encouraging the installation of this infrastructure. I mean in a perfect world-- I'm not making a political statement but in a perfect world, we would step away as much as possible from fossil fuels and we would try to find a new way of commuting that would, hopefully-- again, I don't want to get people excited in the chat room-- but hopefully be better for the environment.

And so one of the tools that appears to be available to us at this point are the electric vehicles. Now, if you have an electric vehicle, unless you have a very, very long extension cord to go to work, you need to charge the battery before you go out.

And so a lot of the condominiums, most condominiums in Ontario, were built before this technology. And so now we need to retroactively kind of retrofit our various communities to be able to accommodate that. There's a process to be followed, there's, of course, a cost to this, and there's all sorts of strongly held opinions out there about the pros and cons and how that works, and so on and so forth.

So about two years ago-- you always have to do plus three because the pandemic is-- we never count those. So maybe already five years ago there were changes to the Condominium Act, and specifically to the general regulation under the Condominium Act, to facilitate this transition, to help condo corporations implement this new technology in a way that wouldn't be as cumbersome as if they were to make another change to the common elements.

And so we're going to talk about that. And, of course, we're are going to be talking mostly-- and that's going to be the bulk of the presentation-- Adam will be presenting about the various solutions out there, how they work, how do you install them. I mean, he's the expert here tonight so he's going to be leading the way. But let's start quickly with the legal framework because you have to think about that.

So most of you out there-- it's not true for everybody-- but most high rises, for instance, the parkings are underground, and these parking are unitized. By that I mean that each owner owns their parking unit, but the parking unit is really just a volume. It's a space above a membrane between two columns, between yellow lines where you can put your car.

But what you need if you have a charging station, if you have an electric car you need to be able to plug it somewhere. So we need to think about the modifications required to the envelope, to the space around your space, to install a charger. That charger needs to be connected to the grid. And then that grid normally feeds electricity that is paid by all of the condominium owners. And so, of course, we need to find a way to deal with that. Is it fair that all of you pay for my electric gas now? Of course not.

And so These are all the new sort of concepts to keep in mind. And so the Condo Act was changed, specifically its regulation, to facilitate these kinds of conversions. The general regulation is regulation 4801, and it's giving condo corporations two options.

The option when the corporation is the one installing the charging station, there's a process to be followed with or without a vote. And I think Nailah is going to cover that. And then there's the other door where we have owners who are installing themselves. They take the initiative to install their charging station.

So imagine a situation where an owner comes forward and says, I'd like to install a charging station in my parking. That means that I need to install a conduits and wires and pipes and I need to tap it into the electrical box. How do I do this? So they're asking you for permission. That's one option.

And the other option, may be the one that's increasingly more common is where the corporation takes the lead, takes the initiative to say, OK, well, this is an inevitable change that's coming down the pike. It's going to have an impact on the value of our buildings, and so on and so forth, so let's get our building EV ready. OK, so those are the two doors. And we are going to start with which door. Owner installation, so that's Graeme, is it?

GRAEME MACPHERSON: Yeah.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: OK. So go ahead.

GRAEME MACPHERSON: So we've talked a bit in another webinar, and a lot of people might have heard of it, of section 98 agreements. And those are the situations where if an owner wants to make any sort of modification to the common elements, there's a process that has to be followed. They have to sign an agreement with the corporation. The corporation has to naturally be prepared to allow them to do that. And a similar but not quite the same process applies here.

And so the first step is that if an owner wants to install their own electrical vehicle charging station, they have to apply in writing. And they have to make sure that their application is signed and properly delivered to the corporation. And they have to make sure that in their application they include all of their own costs, any of the required drawings or specifications or information that might be required regarding the proposed installation.

Now, here's one of the first caveats I'm going to indicate, that corporations have to cooperate with owners and provide them with any information or permission or authorization that they may need in order to put that application together.

So, for instance, giving them plans or drawings or information about the electrical grid, the corporation can't hold that information back. And then once the corporation receives an application, it's going to have 60 days to respond. And that time frame can be extended if both sides agree in writing, but it's important to note here that it's responses available to it are limited.

The corporation can only reject the request for an electrical vehicle charging station for very specific reasons. If, A, based on the opinion of a qualified professional in a report the installation would be contrary to the Condo Act or the electrical safety code, or if the installation is going to adversely affect the structural integrity of the property or it would pose some sort of serious health risk to someone or serious risk of damage.

And if the corporation does reject the proposal, it has to provide a copy of the report on which that rejection is based. So they can't simply say no, say we think it's unsafe and leave it at that. It has to be based on a professional report and that has to be shared with the owner. And in any other circumstance, the corporation has to say yes to the proposed installation.

Now, the corporation can also propose alternate installations. So, for example, putting the station somewhere else or setting it up in a different way. But, again, the caveat here is that they can only do that if that alternative is not going to impose on the owner further unreasonable additional costs.

So then after that 60 day response period, the parties then have a 90 day window to enter into an agreement. And this is going to be just like a Section 98 agreement in a lot of ways. We're going to talk a little bit later in the presentation about what these agreements have in them, but at a very high level they set out what the expectations and responsibilities are, who's required to ensure what, who's required to repair what, who the ownership stays with, things like that, the consequences of not abiding by the agreement.

And then that agreement, once it's all been set out, gets registered on the title to the owner's unit so that anyone who is going to purchase that unit, when they do so they'll see not only are they purchasing that unit, but they're also purchasing this interest in this-- this specific part of the common elements.

And it's also important to note that these agreements don't take-- they're not valid, they're not in force until they've been registered onto the unit's title. And as a final note, these agreements for Section 9-- or for EV charging stations, they're all going to have a mediation and arbitration clause that sets out in the event of a disagreement that the parties will have to go to mediation and arbitration to resolve their differences if they're not able to resolve them just negotiating.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Amazing.

GRAEME MACPHERSON: Long story short, like a Section 98 agreement but very limited ways to say no, the act and its regulations highly are built to encourage corporations to allow these.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Great. So if your instinctive initial reaction is-- as a corporation is against the installation EV charging stations, you have an uphill battle because as Graeme indicated, everything is set up in a way that there needs to be a very good reason not to.

And there are some specific deadlines-- and they're fairly short in the condo world, 60 days in the condo world is fairly short. It's really maybe two board meetings-- is done in such a way that the corporation must answer within 60 days.

And the only way they can say, no, you're not going to install this is if they-- it's backed up by a professional and/or if they're able to demonstrate, as Graeme indicated, it's against the Condo Act, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now, a trick question-- and maybe I'm not going to set it-- pose it as a question because we didn't discuss that yesterday and that would be unfair to Graeme but--

GRAEME MACPHERSON: I think I know where you're going.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: What happened-- well, maybe-- what happens if the corporation does not respond within 60 days? Do you know what does that mean?

GRAEME MACPHERSON: So if they don't respond within 60 days, that's not a back alleyway around it. That is technically not counted as a rejection. So they're deemed to have simply not rejected the idea and you move to the next clock which is 90 days to enter into the agreement.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: So imagine that. So if you're not answering within 60 days, you are deemed not to have accepted it, but you are deemed not to have rejected it. And so automatically, as Graeme said, the owner falls into the next window, which is, OK, well, my proposal has been approved.

Now we need to work on the terms of the agreement that's going to go into the EV. OK, wonderful. Let's move on to the next door. Door number two, the corporation is proactively interested in moving forward and in installing a-- or getting their corporation EV ready. Nailah.

NAILAH RAMSOOMAIR: Great. So Graeme spoke about Section 98, and here we're going to make reference to Section 97. So Section 97 of the Condo Act, if you remember, that dictates how the corporation can make changes to common elements.

So the way that that happens is usually through a form of notice to owners and then a vote by the owners. So the corporation being able to install EV chargers kind of follows the same format as that. Not exactly but kind of the same. So there's two ways to go about it.

So option one is when the corporation doesn't need to have a vote by the owners. So this means that the board can install the charging stations on 60 day notice to the owners if the cost of installation is not greater than 10% of the annual budgeted common expenses for that fiscal year. So when we talk about cost there, we're talking about that's basically limited to buying and installing the equipment.

And, secondly, if the board reasonably believes that the owners will not regard the installation of the EV charging stations as causing some type of reduction to the enjoyment or the use of the common elements or the units.

So if both those criteria or conditions are fulfilled, then the corporation can unilaterally install that EV charging station within 60 days notice to owners without there being any vote. On the other hand, then there's option two. And this is when the corporation needs to have a vote by the owners. And that's basically when one of those conditions that I just spoke about are not met.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Sorry, did we switch-- did we switch slides?

NAILAH RAMSOOMAIR: We're on option two. Yep.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Oh, OK.

NAILAH RAMSOOMAIR: Yep, option two. So exactly, possible vote by owners. So if one of those conditions are not met, as spoke about before, the board can requisition a meeting to vote on the proposed installation. So this meeting would need to be requisitioned within 60 days by at least 15% of the units. And the corporation would only be able to proceed with the installation of the EV Chargers if the owners of at least 15% of the units have not requisitioned a meeting within the 60 days of the notice.

If a meeting is requisitioned, no quorum has been met at the first attempt of holding that meeting. And, third, if quorum has been met, the owners don't vote against the proposed installation. So more of the story, there's two possibilities, two doors you can go through for a corporation to be able to install these EV chargers. One when there's no votes necessary and one when there is.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: OK, wonderful. You've heard both of them, both Nailah and Graeme referred to Section 98 or Section 97. And the reason why that is the starting point to the discussion is that both of these sections deal with changes to common elements.

What you do in your unit is your business, to some extent, but owners can't go and modify common elements. And, again, in this case there's a need to modify common elements because we're going to need to install a charger and drill it on a wall, install a conduit that's going to go from your parking spot all the way to-- eventually to the electrical grid, the fuse box, the panel. That's what I was looking for.

Eventually it's going to go and connect to the source of electricity. So all these are modifications to common elements. And so Section 97, what it normally deals with, it regulates how a condo corp can change its common elements. I can't go unilaterally and change our lobby just because I want a different lobby. I need to follow what Section 97 provides for before I'm able to make such a change.

And similarly, Graeme can't go and install a park bench outside the front door because he would like to have a bench there, because that would be a modification to common elements. But in this case, it's an owner that triggered modification so he would need to ask permission under Section 98. So that's why we keep going back to these two sections.

But in this case, while these analogy or while these are the starting point, the reality is that the changes that we're talking about, the EV changes are really done pursuant to Section 24(3) of the general regulation or Section 24(4) of the general regulation.

And basically what it says, what these two sections say is, OK, don't go back to 97, 98, this is how it's done when you're dealing with EV charging stations. There's a special, somewhat easier process because the province-- for better or for worse-- wanted to find a way to encourage the installation of these EV charging stations-- this electrification of condo land to facilitate it because otherwise owners would never be able to.

I mean, there's about a million point-- there's 1.1 million Ontarians that live in a condo in Ontario, and so there needed to be a way for them to more easily be able to make the change that's required for them to be able to install a charger.

I mean, if they live in their home, they're freehold, they can just go ahead and install the charger and they don't need to ask the neighbor. But in this case, you're dealing with a small community and you're dealing with an infrastructure that is shared and owned by everybody else. So that's why we have these exceptions. They're truly exceptions.

OK. And Nailah's segment dealt with how do we deal with-- do we need to consult the owners? To what extent do they need to vote on this? And basically, as she indicated-- and this is what would apply, I would say, in most cases-- well, I shouldn't say that because the vote and no vote turns on the cost of the installation. So let me pause for a second and give you a third option that does not appear in this slide here.

And the third option would be-- so corporation installation, owner installation, hybrid installation. This to me-- and maybe I should change my slide-- is what I see more often than not because what Adam will speak in a minute, he will speak about the infrastructure that's required to be installed versus the charger for each parking.

And so the hybrid installation is where the corporation implements the infrastructure you'll need to make changes to your panel maybe, you'll need to make-- you'll need to put a transformer, maybe you'll need to install Wi-Fi. And so that is basically the infrastructure and that I usually recommend that that be triggered as a change by the corporation but then you leave it to each owner to determine whether or not they want to connect.

Obviously, you're not going to impose the charger on everybody, and so that part of the installation, the EV charging portion of the installation, that part is a change by the owner. So a part of the change is corporation driven. You will likely be below that 10% that Nailah was talking about. And part of the change will be triggered and initiated in advance by the owner, thus the need to have the EV agreement.

And by doing it that way, in my view, it's the fairest way to share the cost and it's the fairest way to implement and to strike the balance between those who are the early adopters and they want to connect and those who may not be the early adopters and they don't want to connect. And so you don't want to saddle them with costs that really shouldn't be theirs to assume, obviously.

OK, clear as mud, I'm going to stop sharing because, Adam, you're going to take over, hopefully, the screen, and you will see that I'm going to be heckling Adam from the sideline. I'm going to keep stopping him and asking questions. I don't get a chance every day to have a guest such as Adam and someone that I can ask all my questions. As all of you know at home I'm also a condo director, and I'm kind of curious about the EV charging station. So go ahead, Adam. The floor is yours.

ADAM FIRCHUK: Thank you very much, Rod and team. I learned something-- I learned more than a few things new by listening to your presentations that I haven't heard from a few different panels and seminars I myself have attended. So thank you very much for that extra knowledge.

I'm excited. As a professional in the industry, we assist corporations secure funding and do turnkey EV charging installs. So to date we've installed, as you said, over 3,000 chargers in about 100 condominiums, probably around 140 condominiums to date.

So when working with EVs and at the board level, you're wondering why are owners investing into EV vehicles. We have three main groups, right. The first one is owners have applied for 60 day notice. They have a car or they're getting a car soon, they're barking up your door saying, what's the EV policy? That's your first immediate owner.

You're also going to have owners who are sitting on the sidelines. And these owners understand that there is a value to having an EV charger in their unit. They understand that if they put in X into their charger-- and I'll show you some true financials in the next few slides-- they're going to make a great return on their investment, along with getting more foot traffic in the door of people who are searching realtor.ca for EV charger.

Because folks understand the 60 days plus 90 days does seem like a lot for a board member and a board to make a decision but as an owner with a vehicle, they don't want to go through the hassles of being the first to install in a building. They are looking for buildings that have a panel to connect to or they have chargers installed in the suite. The third--

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: I'll interrupt you for a second. And it's not just someone that has a car now that's looking to buy into a unit, it may be someone that's looking to buy a unit and they want to have that ability. They want to know that-- they want a future safe, I guess, their purchase. Will I be able eventually to do it? Yeah.

ADAM FIRCHUK: Which is a great sort of tangent into number three, power is finite. So most, like 95% of condominiums are using a power sharing model with chargers. I.e. 11 can run at the same time on a panel of 30, when the 12th one comes online, the power is still shared.

My major recommendation for condos is do a power evaluation study. Understand how much power is left in your building for EV chargers. Most out of one to one charger ratio have around 30% of parking spaces currently able to charge.

Now, that delta is massive. Some have zero, some have 100%. So do your research into a power study to understand what power you have to work with. But you're going to have the savvy owner who understands this power is finite, and the next round of users for a panel may require 60 to 150,000 from getting more power from a transformer on the street or from Toronto Hydrow or Ottawa Hydrow to your switchgear.

Now we get into the fun numbers. There are two main scopes of work that condominium boards look at. The first, as we see here, is installing communal chargers. I want to Band-Aid the infrastructure of the future. Often it's two chargers that are installed in underground or above ground. And you can see on this picture here, they're kind of installed in the middle of a parking space.

The reason is these chargers have 18 feeter of hose to satisfy two spots each. So effectively four drivers could be used from these chargers. I want to point out one important thing. The cost to install above ground at surface level does get close to 2x the cost of installing indoors. The reason being is to install outdoors, you need to trench, you need to repair that asphalt, that sidewalk, we need a pedestal, and we need bollards.

So what I'm going to show you, again, in numbers is it's twice as much to put in chargers outside as inside, and that is something to think about as you're making your decision. You certainly push the infrastructure to a later date as a positive, but understand that as a board, if you're putting in communal chargers, you are bearing 100% of the capital cost.

You might make a small profit annually off of a Markov of power, but the payback is not very attractive to do this from a business perspective. Rod was getting into me about having too much analog, not enough pictures so I dove into some of our recent projects here. The one on the left--

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Amazing. Look at this, this is amazing. That's exactly what I wanted to see. I knew you had it.

ADAM FIRCHUK: So that's from the women's college. This is what is a communal outlook. And they wanted a one to one with the deep spaces but you don't get this at a condo. Like it costs extra to have it paid but it certainly helps out when there's retail and it's not an obvious location. But this is how it looks like. And you can see how slim the chargers are and how little the conduit is.

On the right is a nice installation of a couple panels, all it goes to show is what is required for it. This is a two panel operation. You do require a disconnect switch, a transformer beside it, and then the panel. And you're looking for as little sleek two inch conduit pieces as required to bring this power into the parking areas of the garage. And you want to protect all your assets and investment with these bollards because people can be crazy in underground parking lots.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: And you can explain later what the transformer does and--

ADAM FIRCHUK: Yeah, after this slide I'm going to go through that topographic display of what the transformer does. That was just a visual for pictures.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Amazing.

ADAM FIRCHUK: This is the second option and of what condos approach to owners. And Rod hit this a few times on a collective investment into the EV infrastructure. So what condos are doing is saying, owners, we know that infrastructure costs between 30,000 to 60,000 to get our first panel, and that will service 30 vehicles. Now, that has a bit of a delta to it, especially in the Ottawa region, because for whatever reason the electrical room is always 200 feet away from where the parking garage is and there's a lot of carports as well.

So on the Ottawa side we do find that price is higher than we do in the GTA side. Just for costing basis so you understand that delta. But the idea is whatever the infrastructure cost, we divide it by 30. If it's 30,000, we as a board need as close to 30 people giving us $1,000 each to own their part of the infrastructure. That is a one time investment.

I am one of 30, I can install my charger whenever I want now or at a future date. The cost of a charger is about $3,000. So if you want a full, I want to own a part of the infrastructure-- because that's required-- and I want my personal private charger supplied and installed, you're looking at spending a maximum of $5,000 to get that charger at scale.

So it's a wonderful opportunity for boards to do this right and sort of power share the power, get the 30 people online and try and spend as close to zero as possible to make this happen. A few notes about this pricing, this requires a wall or a pedestal-- or sorry-- a wall or a pillar to mount on.

So ESA requires us-- Electrical Safety Authority requires us to install chargers 5 feet in the air to a solid structure. If you do not have a solid structure, one must be installed to accept the charger onto it. So it looks like a bollard with some sheet metal racking to the ceiling, nice and hard with the charger there.

We find one of the advantages is there is little to no board investments. So you're going to have those plethora of owners that we saw in those one to three different buyers coming to you with either a $1,000 for an infrastructure install or the full $4,000 to $5,000 for the charger installed.

Your price on top of this would be for the Section 98 investment and the Section 97 agreement. So that cost is around $550 per person. It will range plus or -100 depending on the project, the scope, et cetera, but you add around 550 per person to the overall cost to get your total cost to owners.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: OK, just go back to that one if you don't mind. So I want to unpack this a bit. There it is, OK. I want to understand the distinction between option one and option two, just to be clear. So option one, you're not connected. You have basically bought the ability to connect you later.

ADAM FIRCHUK: Correct. So you do not own a charger, you do not have conduit or electricity to your actual parking space. All you have is one of 30.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Right. And I was going to say, so this concept, this calculation is based on what you said a couple of minutes ago that one installment, one sort of setup can accommodate up to about 30 vehicles, give or take. And so if the corporation was to install the infrastructure, we're assuming the premise here is that we can accommodate up to 30.

And so if you're able to get 30 people to buy-- I don't want to say it that way but you want to get 30 people to reserve their spot into this installation, it's cost neutral for the corporation. And so you're not going to turn to the other owners to pay for that part of the installation. Whereas option two is-- a distinction with option two is that you not only got your spot into the infrastructure, your ability to connect to it, but you're also installing an actual charger.

ADAM FIRCHUK: Correct. After option two, by the time the vendor leaves, you have a fully functional charger that is ready to go.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: So someone under option one could be I don't yet have an EV car. I may get one in the future, I want to make sure I reserve my spot into this transformer or panel or whatever it is.

ADAM FIRCHUK: Correct.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Right. There used to be a time not too long ago-- and tell me if that has changed-- where-- and maybe it's covered later in your presentation-- but where we needed to get at least 20 chargers. And so it wasn't really an option for owners to say, OK, I'm just going to buy my parking spot or my ability to connect, but I'm not going to put a charger. We kind of needed them to put a charger. Is that still the case?

ADAM FIRCHUK: So that is for the rebate programs and rebate applications, which in two slides we'll get to the rebates. The minimum threshold-- they're all federal programs but the minimal threshold is always 20 level two chargers. So that is where board said if we're going to do this, we are going to do this with 20 because we want half off of the program. So we'll get into how that 20 number really became the basis of 20 or nothing--

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Because as I said-- right, because as I said a couple of years ago, it wasn't an option for someone to say, can I just buy my 1/30 of the infrastructure? It was, no, no, we need people that will actually connect. But that's tied into the finance-- the grant that we may get later so let's park that for a second. OK, perfect. That's very helpful.

ADAM FIRCHUK: Wonderful. And Rod, you brought up-- let me see, what does the transformer do? What is the infrastructure involved for this 30,000 that owners are going to split? So every condominium has power coming in. 99% are at 600 or 208 volt.

When you have 600 volt power, as we show in this diagram, it's great for transporting power over distance, but it is not usable by your lights, EV chargers, et cetera. So what condominiums need to do to access this power is install the new disconnect. And a disconnect is really just a larger breaker. You have breakers on your panel at home, a disconnect is just a large breaker. It's just a big one on the switchgear.

Connect to that is the transformer. That transformer is going to take down that 600 volt power to the 208 volt that every single charger needs. So every 600 volt condominium starts with this process. Connected to that transformer is going to be your panel.

So we've been discussing the 30 panel slots, so beside that-- and we saw in the picture the transformer-- is going to be a panel with 30 breakers, right. Unit 101 owns breaker number one, unit 104 owns breaker number two.

You have a list of those owners who own those breakers as part of the 30. Maybe the board has to put up 4,000 to 5,000 and there's four spares marked management. It's always in the best interest of the board to own a few spaces because in the end, your approach as a board member is to improve the asset value of the property.

If an owner is not conscious to buy it, you still want a future owner to come in and say, I have a EV car, am I able to charge? Yes, you can buy the spot, the infrastructure from the board either at cost or at cost plus an admin fee. Say it cost you 1,000, you charge the new owner $1,250, get the legal work and all that's done. So that is how it is done with board level investment.

The last part of this is the Wi-Fi. And this will tie in to the pricing. You need to recover the money from owners. Like it's great they're one of 30 into a panel, but how do I know who used what and how is the board getting compensated for the power that is used? You need Wi-Fi in order to run apps.

So similar to ordering Uber Eats or Green P Parking, you are going to have an app on your phone with a credit card. So if I, Adam, drove up to my parking space, I need to have it connected to my account with my credit card is valid, and then I will click Start on the actual charger. Once I click start, that charger will bill my credit card, often around $1.15 per hour, what we say.

If I drove into Rod's parking spot because Rod has a charger-- I don't because I can't afford it or I don't want one right now-- if I pull into his parking spot and plug in his charger, nothing will happen. I can open an app, I can have a credit card on it but if Rod didn't give me access, I cannot access the actual app.

What happens at the board level of recovery is you get one direct deposit for all the power used by the building. So your vendor will go in, they'll set the price of power to recover your cost plus any fees the network charger provides so that you get 100% recoup of the power given to each and every resident on a specific level.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: OK, don't change yet. Please go back. So I'm going to, again, unpack this. Like, talk to me like I'm five. So just to make sure here, to the right of the picture, that main distribution panel, we have that in the condo already, right?

ADAM FIRCHUK: Yes, that is the switch gear in every condo.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: And so the electricity comes in and presumably then it goes to the units and then it's likely metered, and so on and so forth. So we have that already. So what we're talking about installing, this infrastructure we're talking about is what we see to the left of this picture, and so you need a transformer. And so is the electrical panel what imposes this 30 connection limit or is that the transformer?

ADAM FIRCHUK: All of them. Actually both plus the disconnect install limits. So there's limits at every single level of electricity. So on a panel-- I'll break it from the panel level. On a panel it usually is rated for 400 AMPs. If you were not power sharing, you could have 10 chargers. 10 times 40 is our 400 AMPs.

When you have the power sharing, which is in the charger itself, is able to connect and tell each other who's on and who's off, they can make it so that it's as if 10 are always running at the same time. If another one comes on, you're still taking the power of 10 but dividing it over 11. So that's the power sharing at the panel level.

So panels were kind of restricted to if there was no-- if there was sub metered approach, which some people use, I can get 10 on a panel. We now run into a limitation of the transformer. This 75 kVA gives us 10. You could install a smaller. There's a 45 size, which would allow five to run at the same time power sharing. You could install 112.5, which will allow 17 to run without power sharing.

So whether or not that is sized appropriately will become another barrier to how many can run at a time. And, finally, your disconnect. I know at 100 AMPs I can take a maximum of the 10 chargers that we keep saying. Even if I put a larger transformer on that disconnect and a larger panel but kept 100 AMPs at my disconnect, I'm not getting any more power sharing.

So you need all three or at least two parts to also keep up with the limitation because any single one of those becomes a limiting factor of your power sharing, then that's your limiting factor. You can have the biggest disconnect and the biggest panel, but if you have the smallest transformer, it doesn't matter. So you make sure all three are sized appropriately.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: OK. And when we-- if we get 30 to connect and we sort of maxed out the electrical panel one, can I just connect a second wave?

ADAM FIRCHUK: That's it. That's the perfect word. You grab the next 100 AMPs out of the 600 AMPs we have here, and that's your second wave of chargers.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Right. But that's assuming that we have enough juice in the main distribution panel.

ADAM FIRCHUK: Exactly. So 100 AMPs is the smallest we're going to take at 600 volt in order to make a project happen. So you can still-- I recommend first do your load study. Start figuring out how much load we have, but understand that you can't go smaller. It's not cost effective to go smaller than this first one that holds 30 because it draws the same power as one that would use 10. So you might as well get more out of the juice that you have.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Unless there's a small condo. I mean, if you have a condo that has-- somebody was asking, there's 12 people in a condo, then, I mean--

ADAM FIRCHUK: Exactly. Then you just break all my numbers down. So you're going to have that 45 kVA transformer, the 50 AMP. So it will scale down if that is it, there's 12 of us. So, yes, it can scale down because you have to go with that but most condos will be 100 plus units, that 100 to 150 sweet spot, and you want to make sure you start power sharing.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: OK. And so this load assessment analysis that you spoke of at the very outset is to tell us out of that main distribution panel where I have 600 AMPs and so on and so forth, on a good day or a bad day, how much are we using and how much extra power can we tap into? Because, I mean, it's at one point you can't go more, you can't go more than what's coming in.

ADAM FIRCHUK: That's it.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: OK. Sorry, I'm done interrupting. Now you can move on to the next--

ADAM FIRCHUK: It's a fantastic question. It's good to break this down and figure it out because if you start telling an electrical contractor, I just want a bigger panel, keep my transformer the same, OK, but you're not getting any benefit from it. So understand that when a vendor says, no, we need to change the whole scope, likely the whole scope has to change to meet your demand or request.

Now we get into the fun stuff, the rebates. So they're not good. I'm going to be completely blunt with you. They have been fantastic in the past. You're looking at 2021 we applied for 20 condos, and 18 of them get 50% funding. And everybody's high fiving, condos are getting tons of money. It's fantastic.

You go to 2022, we apply for 34 condos, get the champagne ready, more projects, everything's great. We had four approved. So we went down from a 90% success to 15% success over one year. And we go to the government and we say, what gives? Like, why did you change? What's the minimum threshold? Why did four get it? Everybody had 20 or more. Some people were installing 40 chargers.

And they said, listen, there's two parts to this. One is that same pool of funding goes to the first two chargers you see here, the level-- the fast chargers. Fill my car in 45 minutes because in Canada we have a range anxiety problem. Getting from Windsor up to Ottawa or from Toronto to Sudbury, this rebate funding needs to go to those chargers because they're 100,000 plus to install. We need to incentivize private investment into them.

The second part is the rebate program was always 5,000 per charger. We assumed chargers were 10,000 to install, and they were for the longest time. Pricing and understanding how to do this more efficiently has brought that price down. Your owners are now paying under 5,000 for a charger. We don't have as much of a hole here as we used to so do not expect there to be many more rebates for condos.

We look at 2023. They advertise the fall program, that was quietly axed. No applications were allowed. They moved their website to say accepting proposals in spring of 2024. We're in spring of 2024 and it's been crickets.

So there are naysayers every time saying, no, there's rebates, they're great. I say, yeah, there's there. They're certainly available but do hedge-- as a board member or property manager, do not go about installing EV Chargers simply expecting a rebate. You can do an application and cross our fingers, and every vendor will love to do the application for you, work with you. Everyone loves to have half off their price because you get more chargers installed. It's great for everybody. But don't anticipate getting it.

The one outlier, which is fantastic for this, has been Ottawa Hydrow. So Ottawa Hydrow last year really stepped up. And they were giving success for, I would say, back to the 90% project days. They had some money that they were very good at advertising, making the criterion for install very clear, and a lot of Ottawa condos have been successful in receiving that funding.

So that is the one where you say, OK, it was 2023 last year and our condo just got $50,000 for a project, yes, you were likely in the Ottawa region. I'll sound like a stock performer, right, past results do not dictate future success. So certainly make your applications inquire but do not plan on these rebates being the backbone for your installation. And now when we tie this into Rod's discussion before, we are not pushing condos to get 20 chargers at a time because that was based on obtaining a rebate, which was fantastic in the past.

Now that you can get a project going for your three or four owners that are breathing down your neck, by getting others to invest into the infrastructure, you can do this properly and not really have to force 20 people to buy a charger to make this happen. So it's changed the rules of getting projects working in condos a little bit. Now, before I change this, Rod, I know you've got some questions.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Nice. Maybe more of a comment than a question. And I'm going to say this. A couple of minutes ago, Adam, you were talking about the infrastructure and who's going to pay for that. And you were basically saying the cost neutral exercise for the corporation is you sell, quote unquote, you know, "30 spots" into this first wave. And so then whether people want to-- they want to charge it right away or not, we're not going to use collective funds.

I guess this is where I'm going with this, who pays for the infrastructure? It's not a question I'm asking you it's a rhetorical question that I hope to answer myself right now. So who pays for the infrastructure? And there's really three sort of models that I see.

One of them is the one that Adam just described, which is basically, listen, 30 people can connect to that. We're going to find 30 early adopters, whether they want to charge it right away or not. And they are going to finance this first installation. And these people have reserved their spot into the panel.

The second option that we see a lot of condo follow is the infrastructure. The cost of the infrastructure is assumed by the condo corporation. They say this, at least notionally, it benefits the entire complex at least notionally, as I said. Our complex is EV ready. It's a change that we do to our electrical infrastructure and so the corporation will assume that $30,000 cost to implement the infrastructure. And that brings us back to what Nailah was explaining, that we're going to be below that 10%.

The third model would be maybe this, and Adam alluded to it, is we know we have 30 spots. Let's say we're only able to get 20 or 25 early adopters. Well, maybe the corporation what they can do is kind of finance the other five that remain. And eventually when you get the next five type owners to want to opt in, well, you have the infrastructure, it's ready to go, and then they kind of indemnify the corporation by buying their share of the infrastructure.

So all sorts of options. OK, one of the things I wanted to go back to-- and I don't know if you're going to cover that again, you did talk about the mechanics of tapping my card and then how does that work. But I just want to be clear here, the cost of the actual usage, electricity usage, that's not going to be-- the fact that we're adding 30 chargers now, we are not going to impose on the corporation an increased cost.

You're going to have at the back end some billing, third party provider of some sort that will measure the consumption, collect from the owners, and indemnify the corporation. Can you walk us through this? How does that work exactly?

ADAM FIRCHUK: Great question. So these chargers that are installed, that the majority of installers are putting in are called open protocol chargers. So think of a charger like a cell phone. There's a dozen cell phone companies out there, Fido, Rogers, Hula. I don't know them all but imagine that is the same with EV chargers. There's Switch, there's Charge Lab, there's ChargePoint.

You as a board are going to select what is the best network provider for the condominium. You're either going to pay $10 a month per charger or a percentage of the electricity. So in both ways there is a bit of a cost that the users are going to bear to make the power sharing happen and to make the billing happen.

So this network provider is going to collect all the funds from the owners. They have the payment processing system, they will collect all the funds. The chargers themselves are revenue grade. Each one is stamped by measurement Canada for the ability to invoice at a revenue grade level. So they're starting to collect all the funds, board members and managers have access to a dashboard that's live. They can see each and every charger, how much they've used, what the total is, what the collections are.

They are going to get a direct deposit monthly which is going to cover the cost of power. And the operator will either keep their monthly fee or their percentage of the power-- of the increase of power. How do we make sure the board is at zero indemnified? You look at the Hydrow bills.

So if it's just $10 a month to keep it simple, we look at the Hydrow bill and we say, OK, often it's bulk rate for the common elements. So your residential might have $0.26 overnight, but because we have to grab from the switchgear of the common elements, it's bulk billed. Often it's like $0.13 a kilowatt hour, plus you add another $0.05 for the delivery charges, regularly charges, et cetera. It'll work out to $0.18 a kilowatt hour is what an owner will see in this case.

So in that way, every six months we look at the bills again. Did the bills go up when we had more chargers installed? Did we hit a new demand peak so we're in a different class and our bills went up? Often, no, but every six months you keep looking.

Some condos might also have time of use for six months and then straight bulk bill for six months. So you make sure you're constantly changing it over to mimic exactly what the condo is going to pay on the hourly basis or just on the bulk billed basis. Again, constantly making sure that the condominium is not shortchanged if electricity does rise.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: And so that's, I think, maybe two messages here. One is that there's no additional cost to the collective of owners for the usage that Graeme makes of the Hydrow because he's connecting his car. That's the first thing.

And the second thing is that if you use a third party billing outfit, like Charge Lab or whoever else, the corporation and management are not measuring consumption, they're not keeping track of kilowatt hours, they're not doing any of that. They're not even collecting from the owners that are using the electricity. So all that happens is that this is done by Charge Lab-- just to name this one-- and basically Charge Lab measures the consumption, charges Graeme for his use of the electricity.

Now, of course, the electricity is coming out of the corporations' draw, and so then the corporation gets indemnified at the end of the month or every couple of months they receive the funds to compensate them for Graeme's usage. All right? OK. Next.

ADAM FIRCHUK: Wonderful. This is what a charger looks like. We saw some pictures but here's the true measurements. It's like a piece of paper. It's literally the size of a piece of paper. And this charger and all the ones that are often installed, to be honest, most vendors use this exact same light on charger. And you'll know that because you'll get your three quotes for anything you're looking at. They're all going to come with 18 feet of hose length.

So if you do own those tandem parking spots side by side as a private owner, stick one in one of the parking spaces near the middle and you can service both of your vehicles, which is very nice. They're all level two chargers. No condominium is installing a level three charger that I know of or have heard of. It's just too cost prohibitive and they take too much power. And it has the universal connector.

So this will fit every car except for Tesla. Teslas, I wish we could install their chargers but they don't interact with power sharing. The good news is every Tesla comes with an adapter at purchase, so you'll put your adapter on this universal charger and plug it into your vehicle with no change.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Amazing.

ADAM FIRCHUK: The chargers are able to bill on an hourly rate or a kilowatt hour rate. Right now you can choose-- as an owner you're going to see 17-- $0.17 a kilowatt hour or you are just going to multiply the math for them. And it'll be $0.17 a kilowatt hour times the 6.65 kilowatt hours for the charger usage, which is like $1.15. The board can make that decision now but they are steering everyone towards kilowatt hour.

Access control is very important. So we see here just a simple app. It's registered to me. Adam, this is my charger. I can only click Start. If I'm a landlord-- and landlords love this system-- you can set up your tenants as a sub user. And all that means is they have access to the charger, they've paid you an extra $50 to $100 a month for access to that charger, and they're paying for their power directly.

You're not going after them for $40 a month in charger usage or you're not worried they're charging more or charging less than they should. Everything is at the point of sale. So you-- me, myself, my spouse is coming downstairs and she doesn't have her phone, I can click Start from the unit and she can plug in.

And she can have my credit card running and plug in her vehicle, same for a friend that comes over. But you also have that ability to have multiple accounts on a charger that are billing directly for power, and it makes no difference to the board because they're just getting their cost of power at the end of every month.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: I guess that could work also for a communal charger if, in fact, rather than have individual ones out there, if you sacrifice maybe one of your visitor parking and then had a commute-- I'm not sure how you would-- the logistics of making sure that people move their car and so on and so forth but that could be also a way of doing it where the owners are able to use that communal when-- by having their own profile or whatnot.

ADAM FIRCHUK: Exactly. And you could have a whole next seminar on what to do with communal chargers and how to make sure people don't overcharging gas vehicles. It can be a nightmare. But when vendors install chargers, they'll have QR codes on them. So that way I knew I just got a vehicle, I'm not sure but I want to try out my friend's charger, I take my phone, I put my camera on it and that QR code is going to log me through how to sign up and utilize the charger, which is fantastic for the communal outlooks.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Perfect. Anything else?

ADAM FIRCHUK: That is the end of the presentation.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Wow, I was going to say we're going to run out of time, but that's amazing. Perfect. I see there are tons of questions and we haven't even talked about the EV agreements. So what I'm going to do, we have really three minutes left. Graeme, do you want to maybe quickly tackle EV agreement? And think we're going to have to look at the questions and then have maybe another webinar on this because--

GRAEME MACPHERSON: I think so. I can tell you I've been answering some questions. A lot of the outstanding ones are about townhouses and how this-- if that changes the approach. And there were also some about communal charges, which is something that we brought up in the end there. So there's a couple of untapped items here. But very very quickly--

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Next time maybe we should get an engineer, maybe, to talk about the engineer side of it, maybe a manager that could explain to us from the manager's perspective, and maybe even a director that could tell us how well it has gone with their corporation. But so in the 60 seconds or less, tell us about these EV agreements.

GRAEME MACPHERSON: Yeah. So what these EV agreements are generally going to do is mandate how the charging stations are installed, who is responsible for what, both in terms of maintenance, repair, and also associated costs and insurance.

And it may set the circumstances under which-- under these sets of circumstances the charger can be removed and whether it has to be reinstated and who's going to be responsible for that, what happens in the case of a breach, and if there are legal fees incurred, whether any of those can be charged back.

It's also going to include dispute resolution mechanisms and, of course, it's going to be registered on title. You may also have stuff in there mandating that only the owner of the unit can use the station and they can't give it to their friends or anything like that.

The point is, is that, again, the terms have to be reasonable and they have to be agreed upon between the two. But in general, I will say, as a general rule, of course, every agreement is different. You can usually expect the costs, at least at the cost associated with drafting and registering the agreement, to be borne by the owner of the unit.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Amazing. And so a question we often get is, can we do a bulk registration or can we register one document for everybody? And sometimes what I hear also is do I need a bylaw to-- can we proceed by way of a bylaw instead? Because it's perceived to be easier to register a bylaw. Do you want to tackle that, Graeme or do I do it?

GRAEME MACPHERSON: I mean, in my view, with respect to whether you need a bylaw, you don't. You just need to enter into these agreements and follow the process set out in the legislation.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: And, in fact, in my humble opinion, you cannot proceed with a bylaw. The regulation is clear there needs to be an agreement registered on title for each of the units that is making that modification. So it's an actual requirement, and so you can't do it by way of a bylaw.

And the other problem with the bylaw is that, what are you going to do if you're not able to get 50% of the registered units, voting units to support it? That would defeat the whole purpose, the whole scheme behind or the whole setup behind this new regulation that basically says we want to facilitate the installation.

So if you put as a barrier at the front end, you put, well, we need first to pass a bylaw requiring 50% of all the units to vote in favor of it, well, then you're kind of defeating the purpose of this regulation. So it's not done with the bylaw and it's not done through a vote of the owners. OK, perfect.

It's 6 o'clock, folks. We ran out of time, and so I'm going to have a look at the questions and see if there's enough to have a second webinar. Our next webinar is on June 5-- no, that's not it. There's May. I skipped May altogether, May 1 I think. Is that what it is? Let me just have a quick look here.

GRAEME MACPHERSON: Yeah, it'll be the 1 of May.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Yeah, the 1 of May. So it's going to be the 1 of May our next webinar. We haven't picked a topic but it may be about EV charging stations. You'll need to register again by clicking on the webinar tab. Now, before you ask me, in about seven days or 10 days we will be uploading this webinar on our Condo Advisor website.

You'll be able to watch it on demand, but it's going to take me seven to 10 days to get that done. I'm sorry it takes that long but eventually you'll be able to watch it on demand. OK, so going around the table very quickly, Graeme, Nailah, great job. That was an easy one today for you guys.

GRAEME MACPHERSON: Yeah, show up, look pretty.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: Look at that. OK, Adam, thank you so very much for your presentation. So, again, Adam is a key account manager with MetroEV. And we couldn't have done it without you so thank you so much Adam.

ADAM FIRCHUK: Yeah, thanks for the invitation, Rod, and thank you, everybody, for being such a great audience.

RODRIGUE ESCAYOLA: OK, have a great evening, everybody. It's April, it's full spring except in Montreal where it's going to be snowing in an hour or so. So wishing everybody a great month. And we will see you on May 1 next month. Thank you so much. Have a great evening.