House meter or separate meter for EV chargers?
Separate meter, in most cases where the chargers will be used by more than a handful of vehicles — but not for the reason people assume. This is not a wiring decision. It is a decision about which rate schedule each meter sits on. A dedicated service lets the chargers carry their own tariff and their own demand profile. Hanging them off the house meter can drag every other load on that meter — elevators, corridor lighting, laundry, pumps — onto a demand-based schedule you were not on last month. Some utilities also offer an EV-specific commercial rate only on a separate service. All of this has to be asked before the conduit is set, because afterwards it is a re-trench.
Updated 2026-08-20
Why this is a tariff question, not an electrical one
An electrician can put the chargers anywhere the capacity allows. What they cannot tell you is what that choice does to your bill, because that lives in the utility's rate schedule rather than in the National Electrical Code.
What a demand charge is, and why chargers set one
A demand charge bills you for your highest short-interval power draw in the billing period, usually measured over fifteen minutes, regardless of how briefly it occurred.
The house-meter risk, stated plainly
Adding charging load to the house meter can reprice everything else on that meter, and the reprice is permanent for as long as you stay on the new schedule.
What a separate service actually buys
Clean attribution, tariff isolation, and access to rates that are sometimes only available on a dedicated service.
What the separate service costs you
A second service is not free, and the recurring part matters more than the one-time part at a small site.
Why the question has to be asked before the trench
The meter location decides the conduit path, and the conduit path is the expensive part of a lot install.
The six questions to put to your utility
Ask these of the utility's business or new-construction desk, in writing, and keep the reply. It is the cheapest risk reduction available on the whole project.
The short version
Separate service if you will bill for charging, if the port count will grow, or if your utility publishes an EV rate that needs it. House meter if it is a few ports for property vehicles and it will stay that way.
Can load management keep us off a demand rate?
It can keep the charging peak below a chosen ceiling, which is exactly what a demand charge bills. A load-management system shares a fixed amount of power across the ports and throttles or pauses sessions to hold the cap. Whether that keeps the account under a tariff threshold depends on the threshold and on what else is on the meter, so ask the utility the question with a specific kilowatt number in hand rather than in principle.
How many ports before a separate meter is obviously right?
There is no universal port count, because the trigger is the tariff threshold rather than the hardware. What is close to universal: if you intend to sell sessions to residents or the public, meter separately regardless of count, because the accounting is otherwise guesswork. If it is two ports for maintenance vehicles, the house meter is fine.
Can we submeter the chargers behind the house meter instead of getting a second service?
You can measure them that way, and it solves attribution. It does not solve the tariff problem, because the utility still sees one meter and bills the combined demand on that meter's schedule. A submeter tells you what happened. A separate service changes what you are billed.
Does the utility decide where our meter goes?
Effectively, yes. Utilities have service requirements covering the point of delivery, clearances, meter height, access for reading and the equipment they will accept. Design around them from the start. This is the most common source of late-stage redesign on commercial charging projects, and it is entirely avoidable by asking for the service requirements document on day one.
Do any incentives cover the cost of a second service?
Sometimes, through a utility make-ready program, which is where most of the recoverable money for commercial and multifamily charging now sits. Coverage differs by utility and by program, and some cover only the utility-side work while others reach the customer side too. There is no federal credit to net against this — Section 30C terminated for property placed in service after June 30, 2026.
- 16 Tex. Admin. Code §25.141 — common-facility consumption is the owner's responsibility (Public Utility Commission of Texas)
- US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center — utility and private incentives search
- Recharged — How much does a commercial EV charging station cost (per-port installed cost baseline)
- IRS — Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit (§30C status)
Price it both ways
Port count, distance from the service, and whether the run crosses paving are what move a commercial charging estimate. Give us those and you get an installed-cost range you can take into the utility conversation.