Commercial EV Charging in Florida: What Hotel, HOA, and Mult

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A Florida property owner adding EV charging to a commercial site is buying more than hardware. The project also involves construction, a utility application, a billing system, and years of maintenance after the installation crew leaves. Those are factors that determine whether the site works.

Bobby Wallace, CEO of Wallace Energy, says, “The install is the shortest part of the project. What an owner is really signing up for is the utility timeline on the front end and the operations on the back end.” 

This guide covers what commercial EV charging in Florida involves for the three property types where buyer demand is heaviest right now: 

• Hotels and resorts
• Homeowners associations (HOA) and condominium communities
• Multifamily rentals

What follows moves through a project in sequence, from the site evaluation to the operations that continue long after it. Florida is one of the country's largest and most active charging markets. Department of Energy data from September 2026 counts 15,309 public charging ports across 4,352 station locations in the state, including 9,871 Level 2 ports and 5,063 DC fast-charging ports, behind only California and New York.

Scale is only part of the picture. What makes Florida attractive for a charging business is how hard those ports work. Florida's fast chargers ran at about 20% utilization in 2025, among the highest of any state, and Miami led all U.S. metros at 33.3%, the highest big-city utilization rate in the country. Tampa sits in the same demand tier, with the population density, tourism, and rideshare traffic that drive utilization across Florida, and it has ranked among the country's top five metros for peak-hour charging. 

Before building a pro forma for any Florida site, Wallace Energy pulls live station-level utilization data to confirm demand is real rather than assumed. Florida also carries lower commercial electricity costs than New York or California, which widens the margin on every session billed.

A charging project moves through six phases beyond the initial hardware quote.

Phase

What it covers

If not contracted

Site evaluation

Whether the parking count, dwell time, electrical service, and available utility capacity support charging

The owner is guessing at viability

Engineering and permitting

Drawings and clearance from local building and electrical authorities

The owner hires the engineer and files the permits

Utility coordination

Service application and energization date

The owner absorbs the utility's schedule risk

Construction

Trenching and conduit, electrical work, chargers set on the pad

The owner sources and manages the electrical contractor

Software

Rates, user groups, payments, reporting

The chargers work but cannot bill

Operations

Billing, support, diagnostics, repair

Billing and driver support fall to on-site staff

All six happen whether or not a proposal mentions them. What changes from one proposal to the next is how many contracts cover them. A hardware-only provider supplies the chargers, leaving the electrical work to a contractor the owner engages separately. A software platform covers billing and monitoring but not the site itself. When the phases sit across three contracts, coordination between them becomes the owner's responsibility, and that coordination is rarely priced into any of the three.

Wallace Energy delivers those phases under one contract as a nationally licensed turnkey EPC provider, licensed in more than 40 states. The company's commercial EV charging solutions cover Level 2 and Level 3 DC fast charging installations for commercial property, and the leadership team has collectively delivered more than 8,000 solar projects nationwide.

Ask these five questions to understand how much of the project the owner will end up running.

1. Who files the utility application and tracks it through to energization?
Service applications and energization dates run on the utility's calendar. Whoever files the application carries that schedule risk for the duration. A proposal that supplies the owner with the form, instead of filing and tracking it, returns that risk to the owner.

2. Who holds the electrical license in this state?
Charging installation is electrical work and requires a licensed contractor in Florida. Confirm that the license is held by the company signing the contract. If any portion is subcontracted, ask which firm holds the license and request the number.

3. Who provides driver support outside business hours?
When a session won't start, drivers will call whoever is available. Where no dedicated support line exists, those calls reach the front desk or the property manager. Confirm whether the agreement includes a reliable support channel and what hours it covers.

4. Who is contractually responsible for uptime three years after commissioning?
Uptime obligations live in the maintenance agreement. A warranty establishes which components are replaced on failure. It does not establish who monitors for failures or how quickly they are detected.

5. Who configures pricing and user groups?
Rate structures and user group settings determine whether the installation operates as an amenity or generates revenue. Confirm who holds administrative access to those settings, and whether rates can be changed without going back to the vendor.

If the proposal answers any of the five questions with another company's name or leaves the field blank, that job lands on the owner. Confirm division of responsibility in the proposal to avoid issues later. 

A charger earns revenue when a vehicle is parked long enough to take a meaningful charge. The following sites typically see cars charging for hours. 

• Hotels and resorts: Guests park overnight. A Level 2 port has 8 to 12 uninterrupted hours to work with, which is among the cleanest utilization profiles in commercial charging. A guest who can't charge at the property will charge at a nearby station, and may not book there next time.
• HOAs and condominium communities: Resident vehicles return to the same space nightly, making demand predictable and load management straightforward. Garages also concentrate the electrical service, so a single make-ready scope can cover a large number of future ports.
• Multifamily rentals: Charging is a retention and lease-up feature that can also carry its own cost through per-tenant billing.
• Golf courses and private clubs: Rounds lasting 3 to 5 hours produce dwell time comparable to a hotel stay on properties with surface parking and room for conduit.

"Calculating how long a car sits should be evaluated alongside traffic in the area. I've turned down sites on busy corners where the parking turns over every 15 minutes and I've said yes to condo garages that end up billing all night. That math determines whether a site will pay," said Bobby Wallace, CEO of Wallace Energy.

Utility support varies by territory, and it moves the payback more than the other variables. The Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Center lists four non-residential EV programs for Duke Energy Florida, three of them rebates covering station purchase and make-ready work, and the fourth a charger deployment pilot. Florida Power & Light is listed with a charger deployment pilot and a fleet electrification assessment.

Those are different arrangements. A rebate pays the owner and leaves the asset in their hands. A utility-owned charger removes the capital cost and, often, the control. Before accepting either, confirm who sets pricing and who receives session revenue. Terms and application windows change, so date every figure in a proposal and verify it against the current program.

Federal treatment stacks on top. Charging and solar equipment placed in service on commercial property has historically qualified for an Investment Tax Credit of 30% to 40% of system cost, plus first-year depreciation under MACRS. Florida owners frequently run charging and commercial solar installation as one project for that reason. Tax treatment changes, so it's important to confirm current terms before landing on a figure.

Billing is the component that separates a charging amenity from a charging asset. Horizon, Wallace Energy's charger management platform, handles tariff management, payments, user management, roaming, and business client management from a single backend. The EV charger management software also reports revenue, energy consumption, utilization, and charger status in real time This is data a hotel controller or a condominium board needs before approving a second phase.

The billing model follows the property type. Hotels tend to run open public pricing with an optional guest rate, so the charger serves arriving drivers as well as registered guests. Condominium and apartment communities run user groups. That might mean residents are paying one rate, guests another, staff vehicles a third, with per-unit statements rather than a common area charge. Drivers generally pay by tap or through an app covering both home and public charging.

The reliability problems associated with public charging originate at sites without monitoring or a maintenance obligation. A charger that stops accepting payment may not provide a notification and without monitoring, the owner might learn of the issue from a driver complaint weeks later, at which point the revenue has already stopped.

Managed operations change the sequence. With Horizon, remote diagnostics run against the charger before scheduled field service, and AI self-repair resolves up to 70% of faults without a field visit. The charging platform posted a 97.65% charge success rate across 100,000 chargers globally in 2025. 

Dynamic load management distributes available power across the chargers on a site and adjusts charging schedules, which prevents the failure mode where four vehicles plug in at once and none of them completes a session. A toll-free EV charger tech support line covers drivers and site hosts, so a driver with a payment problem contacts the support line directly.

"The earlier generation of chargers was built for 5 to 7 years of service. What we install now is engineered for daily commercial use on a much longer horizon. That changes how an owner should think about the whole asset beyond install day," Wallace added.

Many disappointing first projects trace back to one of these four mistakes, often left unaddressed before construction.

Over-porting the first phase: Placing more ports than the dwell profile supports produces idle equipment and a maintenance obligation with minimal or no revenue behind it. Build the make-ready scope for future expansion and install the port count supported by current demand against measured utilization.

Building on a short-dwell site: Quick-service retail and drive-through parking produce dwell times measured in minutes. That pushes the site toward DC fast charging and a heavier electrical service requirement. Run the dwell test before the site test.

Setting the rate last: Establish the rate and the user groups before construction begins to set expectations and avoid issues with current and future residents.

Mistaking a warranty for an uptime commitment: A hardware warranty covers parts, not who monitors uptime or what happens when an issue requires a field visit. Confirm that the maintenance agreement specifies each of those obligations.

A charger installed years ago as a free amenity continues to draw electricity on the host's account. Florida properties in that position are candidates for migration before new equipment is scoped. Because Horizon is hardware agnostic under the Open Charge Point Protocol, an existing charger can frequently be moved onto the platform and begin billing without new equipment. Migrating an existing charger onto Horizon takes about 30 minutes.

Much of a charging project is determined before construction begins. Whether a site earns revenue comes down to dwell time and the party responsible for operating and maintaining the site. Both should be spelled out in the proposal.

Project cost depends on four variables: the number of ports, the distance from the electrical service to the parking, whether Level 2 or DC fast charging is specified, and what make-ready work the utility requires. Figures depend on site evaluations and structure costs (equipment, electrical and civil work, permitting, utility fees, software, and operations). 

Yes. Charge point management software supports separate rates for residents, guests, visitors, and staff vehicles, billed per unit. Wallace Energy’s Horizon handles tariff management, payments, and user management from one back end, and reports revenue and utilization in real time. The board typically decides resident rates before construction, but prices can change. 

Not necessarily. Horizon is hardware-agnostic under OCPP, so equipment already installed can often be migrated. A site evaluation confirms whether relocation or incorporating additional ports is the right move for a specific property.

That depends on the contract. Under a managed operations agreement, the developer monitors charger status, runs remote diagnostics, dispatches field service, and handles billing and driver support. Under a hardware-only purchase, the owner holds all of it, and the manufacturer warranty covers parts rather than uptime.

The Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Center lists Duke Energy Florida non-residential programs for Level 2 charging station purchase and DC fast charging station purchase. Florida Power & Light is listed with a charger deployment pilot and separately offers to purchase, install, operate, and maintain DC fast charging stations on commercial property at no cost to the site host. Terms and application windows change, so verify terms against the current utility program before relying on any figure.

Yes, and Florida properties frequently run them as one project. Solar carports and rooftop arrays can offset charging load, and combining the work means one permit cycle, utility interconnection, and engineering pass instead of two. Wallace Energy delivers commercial solar, energy storage, and EV charging under a single EPC contract.

About Wallace Energy

Wallace Energy is a turnkey commercial solar and EV charging developer founded in 2020. We manage site evaluation, engineering, permitting, utility coordination, construction, software, and long-term operations under one roof, giving property owners a single accountable partner for energy infrastructure projects. Our leadership team has collectively delivered more than 8,000 solar projects nationwide, and our in-house EV charging software provides transparent access to charger performance, driver data, revenue, and site operations. Wallace Energy makes energy infrastructure simple, competitive, and built for long-term value.