EV Charging Infrastructure: What Developers Need to Know

New Part S building regulations mandate EV charging readiness in new developments. Here's how to integrate smart, load-managed charging without costly grid upgrades.

The Regulatory Landscape

Since June 2022, Part S of the Building Regulations has required all new residential developments with parking to include EV charging infrastructure. The requirement is specific: every parking space must have cable routing for a future charge point, and at least one active charge point per dwelling. For commercial developments, the requirement is one active charge point per 10 parking spaces, with cable routing for the remainder.

The April 2026 update tightens this further. New developments must now demonstrate that the EV charging infrastructure can be expanded to 100% of spaces without requiring a grid connection upgrade. This is a significant shift — it means the initial electrical design must account for full future capacity, even if only 10% of spaces are initially active.

The Grid Problem

The challenge is that a 200-unit residential development with 200 parking spaces and a 7kW charger per space would require a 1.4MW EV charging load. The typical grid connection for a development of this size is 800kW–1MW. The EV charging alone would exceed the connection capacity.

This is where most developers hit a wall. The DNO (Distribution Network Operator) will quote £200,000–£500,000 for a grid upgrade, and the timeline is 12–18 months. For a developer with a sales completion deadline, this is not viable. The solution is not to upgrade the grid — it's to manage the load.

Smart Load Management: The Key

Smart load management systems — also called dynamic load balancing — allow the EV charging infrastructure to share the site's available capacity. The system monitors the site's total electricity consumption in real time and allocates the spare capacity to EV charging. When the site is quiet (e.g., at night), the chargers can run at full power. When the site is busy, the chargers throttle down.

A Real-World Example

We recently designed the EV charging infrastructure for a 150-unit residential development in Oxfordshire. The site had a 1MW grid connection, and the baseload (lighting, heating, lifts) was 400kW. The EV charging requirement was 150 spaces × 7kW = 1.05MW — a total demand of 1.45MW, which would have required a grid upgrade.

Instead, we installed a smart load management system that monitors the site's total consumption and allocates up to 600kW to EV charging. The system uses a 2-second polling interval, so when the lifts run or the heating kicks in, the chargers throttle down instantly. The result: the site never exceeds the 1MW grid connection, and the EV charging is always available at some capacity.

The average charge rate per vehicle is 4.2kW — more than enough for overnight charging. The system cost £85,000, compared to a £320,000 grid upgrade. The developer saved £235,000 and met the Part S compliance requirement without delay.

The Revenue Angle

For mixed-use developments, there's an additional opportunity. Public-facing EV chargers — whether on a retail park, in a residential car park, or at a workplace — can generate revenue. A 50kW rapid charger installed at a retail park and priced at 40p/kWh can generate £15,000–£25,000 per year in revenue. The charger cost is £18,000–£25,000 installed, so the payback is 1–2 years.

The key is location. A charger in a high-traffic area with 4+ hours of dwell time per vehicle will generate far more than one in a quiet residential car park. We use traffic analysis and dwell-time data to model revenue for each location before recommending installation.

Practical Guidance for Developers

If you are designing a new development, the EV charging infrastructure should be integrated at RIBA Stage 2, not retrofitted at Stage 5. The cable routing, distribution board capacity, and load management system must be designed into the electrical scheme from the start. Retrofitting is always more expensive and more disruptive.

We provide a complete EV charging design service that includes: DNO liaison and connection agreement, load management system specification, charger procurement, and OCPP platform integration. The design is technology-agnostic — we specify the system that works for your site, not the one we want to sell.