California’s New EV Charging Requirements: What You Need to Know — and How Paired Power Can Help

California is rapidly accelerating its push toward transportation electrification — and that means big changes for property owners, developers, fleet managers, and businesses across the state. New regulations are increasing the number of EV chargers required in parking lots of all kinds: from commercial offices to multi-family housing, from retail developments to fleet depots.

For many organizations, these mandates create a new challenge: how do you install dozens of EV chargers without breaking your budget, waiting years for utility upgrades, or driving up your electric bill?

California’s EV Charging Requirements — A Quick Overview

California’s building codes, including CALGreen and Title 24, are raising the bar for EV readiness:

• New construction projects are now required to dedicate a percentage of parking spaces for EV charging infrastructure.
• Multi-family housing may need 40% or more of parking spaces to be EV-capable.
• Commercial properties and fleets are often required to install dozens of operational EV chargers based on parking lot size.

The intent is good: make EV charging widely available. But the reality for many property owners is more complicated.

The Hidden Problem Behind EV Charging Mandates

The problem isn’t just buying chargers — it’s everything else:

• Your existing utility service may not have enough capacity to support 20, 50, or 100 EV chargers.
• Upgrading your service can take 1–3 years, with long permitting timelines and scarce transformer availability.
• Extensive construction can turn your parking lot into a jobsite for months.
• Demand charges from your utility can skyrocket your electricity bill once chargers come online.

For example:

If you installed 50 Level 2 chargers without energy management, you might add as much as 2,000 amps of new electrical load. Depending on your utility rate schedule, that could result in thousands of dollars in new demand charges every single month.

In one case study recently published on Paired Power’s blog, a customer installing 50 workplace EV chargers could experience an annual utility bill increase of more than $339,000 per year.

This is where many businesses hit a wall: they’re eager to comply with California’s regulations — but the logistics, cost, and utility delays make full-scale deployment feel nearly impossible.

How Paired Power Helps You Solve This Problem

At Paired Power, we help businesses navigate California’s EV charging requirements (and other states following suit) with flexible, scalable solutions that work today — not years from now.

Here’s how:

1.) Deploy More Chargers Without Utility Upgrades

Our PairFleet™ solution combines your existing grid capacity with intelligent load management and optional solar integration. That means you can install more chargers than your current utility connection would otherwise allow — without the need for expensive and time-consuming service upgrades.

2.) Slash Your Electric Bill with Demand Charge Savings

With our advanced, AI-driven energy management software, we help you avoid excessive demand charges. Instead of all chargers pulling full load at once, our system dynamically manages energy flows, balancing the load based on real-time vehicle demand and site capacity.

Example: Per our recent case study on the utility cost of operating 50 workplace EV chargers, Paired Power’s solution can reduce demand charges by more than $136,000 per year — providing significant operating cost savings year after year.

3.) Install Solar-Powered EV Charging Now — and Add Utility Power Later

If your grid upgrade is delayed, we can deploy solar-powered EV chargers right away as an off-grid or microgrid installation — giving you immediate charging capacity while your utility connection catches up. Later, additional grid capacity can be seamlessly integrated into the system as it becomes available to level up your system to even more kWh per day.

4.) Shorter Construction & Less Disruption

Our modular approach minimizes parking lot excavation and fast-tracks installation. Many projects are completed in a matter of weeks, not years.

5.) Multiple Solutions, Tailored to Your Site

Every property is different — that’s why Paired Power offers several flexible options depending on your specific needs:

• Solar + storage microgrid charging systems
• Grid-tied chargers with load management
• Hybrid solutions that combine both solar and grid
• Scalable deployment plans to grow over time

California’s EV Future Is Here — Paired Power Can Help You Get There

California’s EV charging mandates aren’t going away — in fact, they’re only getting stronger. But complying with the new rules doesn’t have to mean bloating your budget, delaying your project for years, or creating future operational headaches.

At Paired Power, we’re helping businesses across California (and beyond) build smart, scalable EV charging infrastructure — with less cost, less hassle, and faster deployment.

If you’re facing California’s new EV charging requirements, contact Paired Power today for a free project assessment and see how we can help you future-proof your site.