Commercial EV charger installation in Perth: what a workplace rollout actually costs

Workplace and commercial EV charging is where a lot of Perth businesses are getting caught out right now. The technology is straightforward, but the way costs scale with bay count is not intuitive, and the wrong specification day one can be an expensive lesson day 400.

The rough per bay ranges

• 2 to 4 bays, single site, existing switchboard capacity: $2,200 to $3,500 per bay all in.
• 5 to 15 bays with dynamic load management and OCPP backend: $2,800 to $4,000 per bay.
• 20+ bays typically require a new distribution board and often a supply upgrade. Per bay drops to $2,000 to $2,800 but the fixed infrastructure cost lands somewhere between $15,000 and $60,000 before any charger goes on the wall.

The four decisions that decide the budget

OCPP backend or standalone. OCPP lets you track sessions, bill users, throttle across bays and integrate with a management platform. Standalone is cheaper day one and painful to retrofit.

Dynamic load management. Almost always worth it. Lets you install more chargers than your supply could power simultaneously, because software staggers the draw.

Payment model. Free for staff, subsidised, per kWh billed, or resident allocated. Each changes the hardware and backend spec.

Future proofing. Running conduit for double the eventual bay count during the first install is genuinely cheap. Trenching a carpark twice is not.

The compliance side

Commercial installs have to meet AS/NZS 3000, AS/NZS 61851 and the local Western Power connection requirements. Bays above a certain aggregate load also need a Western Power application before energisation. We handle this whole process, but factor two to eight weeks of lead time depending on the size of the connection.