Opinion: Charging where people live

When it comes to the energy transition, discussions often focus on wind power, photovoltaics or the expansion of the electricity grid. But whether the transition really works in everyday life is also decided elsewhere: in apartment buildings. If electric mobility is to become a mass-market technology, charging must be possible where a large proportion of people live. This is where the housing industry has a key role to play. Housing companies own buildings and parking spaces and must integrate charging infrastructure into existing technical systems, renovation strategies and long-term investment decisions. In apartment buildings, it is not enough to install individual wallboxes as needed. What is needed are solutions designed to be scalable from the outset as part of an operating concept and that will still work when two electric vehicles eventually become 20.

The challenge lies less in the individual charging point than in the overall system. Grid connection capacity, cable routing, metering and billing concepts, and intelligent load management all need to be considered together. Housing companies can play a coordinating role here and prevent technical isolated solutions that later have to be retrofitted at considerable cost. Operation is just as important as construction: only when responsibilities, processes and technical solutions are clearly defined and coordinated from the outset can charging infrastructure in apartment buildings remain functional and economically viable over the long term.

Charging infrastructure should also not be viewed in isolation. The buildings of the future will increasingly bring together different electrical applications – from heat pumps and photovoltaics to battery storage and electric mobility. This gives the housing industry an opportunity to develop buildings and neighborhoods as integrated energy systems. Intelligent energy management can coordinate generation and consumption and make more efficient use of existing grid capacity.

However, the industry needs reliable technical standards, economically viable operating models and conditions that enable investment. Charging infrastructure in apartment buildings is no longer an optional extra. It is increasingly becoming part of future-proof building infrastructure.

If we are serious about the mobility and energy transitions, convenient charging must not remain a privilege of single-family homes. The housing industry is therefore not merely a stakeholder, but one of the key sectors in the expansion of electric mobility.