Retrofitted Renewable Energy in Apartment Buildings (Not Just in Melbourne): Some Info From My Experience on the OC

[u/neilrdt]

Hey community, as an OC Committee Chair, I've encountered a few questions about renewable energy in apartment buildings.

Firstly from me, when we looked into getting solar retrofitted in our building to power common area lights etc. And then from a new resident who recently asked if we were ever going to install it (she also took it upon herself to plug her Tesla into common area power, thinking that was okay! Giving the benefit of the doubt for her not knowing there).

And today, I saw a question in a Facebook (pasted in the first comment here) group from a renter about installation in a private lot. My reply is here below. It's based on MY experience and not 'advice', but maybe someone might take something useful from it. Let me know what you think:

"There are three types of stakeholders here. You, the renter, your landlord and the Owners' Corporation (often confused with/as the 'body corporate').

The state of affairs as it stands for this type of infrastructure, especially within buildings that we not designed, built or spec-d for it:

1. The renter — cannot install this stuff themselves. So that's a given.

2. Your landlord — even with a request via the OC/body corporate, it's unlikely to be approved just for one lot.

Mostly because of the costs of getting the services routed from wherever it comes from outside the building to your apartment (or to your private lot car space for the EV; worse if it's underground!), and to connect to just the private lot's electricity (meter etc).

1. The Owners' Corporation — the OC is the entire collective of owners in the building.
   

The OC Committee is a group of volunteers within that collective, who make decisions around maintenance and other critical requirements of the building's common areas (private lots are not within an OC's scope for repairs etc) and general upkeep.

Upon the advice of the body corporate, the OC won't likely be able to approve any 'retrofitted' infrastructure to a building to accommodate renewable energy for private lot dwelling or parking spaces for EVs.

Mostly because doing so will require deep modifications to common area infrastructure, essentially making all owners pay for supplying renewables to one private lot.

The only hope for the EV would be that the OC approves installation of solar to power all common area lights etc. Then private lots might be able to plug into common area power at no ongoing billing to other owners.

Or, the private lot owner pays for the routing and installation of what's needed to get renewable power to just that parking space that is also connected to the apartment's meter only (so it's not paid for by the OC).

But as an OC committee Chair myself, I/we have looked into this: our building is only 6 years old, and the developers did not design this infrastructure into the building.

Quotes for retrospectively installing solar for renewable power for just common areas alone were into the high $85-95K zone.

It was voted to be unaffordable while we had more pressing matters to pay for regarding improvements of security infrastructure and common area faults that caused leaks and minor flooding.

So in the end, the only thing you can do is to make sure the building you are moving to is already setup for renewable energy, either within private lots, and/or for all common areas. If it doesn't, and you want that, don't move into it."

[u/neilrdt]

The original Facebook question:

"I am a renter living in a property managed by body corporate.

I am trying to reduce my electricity and gas bills .

Wanted to get solar and battery installed, considering there are incentives for owners .

Why is it so hard for body corporate to allow this to happen ?

Even getting a ev charger is a pain .

Can’t understand why it is so hard to approve ?

Do you need any additional planning or approval to get this done ?"