EV Charging Station Requirements: How to Launch and Scale Your Operation

But first, you need to familiarize yourself with the EV charging station requirements across the US. These include technical, infrastructural, physical security, and regulatory compliance requirements.

In this guide, we walk you through the US-specific requirements to help you navigate this booming but complex market.

Table of contents

• EV charging station infrastructure requirements

• EV charging compliance

• Operations and service requirements

• Funding requirements for EV charging networks

• Technology requirements for EV charging stations 

• Choosing the right technology partners 

EV charging station infrastructure requirements

First things first, here’s what you should pay attention to in terms of physical infrastructure.

1. Power requirements for EV charging stations

Before you install a single charger in a parking space, you'll need to check:

• Power capacity considerations. Determine your power needs and what that means in terms of infrastructure. For example:

  • Level 1 (120V) chargers require a standard wall outlet (perfect for at-home charging)

  • Level 2 (240V) chargers need the same outlet as your home dryers (ideal for places where people spend time doing other things, like a retail store parking lot)

  • DC fast chargers require a serious electrical infrastructure to support four 150kW chargers (ideal for fast-charging stations)

• Grid capacity and limitations. After identifying your power needs, determine whether or not the location has the capacity to support them. Call your utility team and get them to explore the space before making any negotiations. Ask them to evaluate if the grid is strong enough to support an EV charging infrastructure like the one you envision. Learn more about the grid and how it fuels your EV charging networks. 

• Backup power infrastructure. Achieving 97% of uptime reliability (US standard) is very ambitious and requires you to have a backup system. A good idea is to install battery storage systems, which aren’t just for backup power. These can help you avoid demand charges by pulling power from batteries during peak hours instead of the grid (and overcharging it). Another idea is to set up smart switching mechanisms that reroute traffic and alert CPOs when it’s activated to reinforce observability and fast issue resolution.

• Dynamic load balancing setup. Access real-time load monitoring data via Kinesis or Apache Kafka to have a more efficient energy distribution across your chargers. This helps to dynamically route power based on demand and other elements connected to the grid to avoid incurring extra costs or overloading it. For example, if you have four 50kW chargers but only 100kW of available power, load management can distribute it based on real-time needs rather than making expensive grid improvements.

2. Physical requirements

Your EV charging station requires a physical space to operate. This needs to be accessible to all, be weather protected, and meet security standards. Here are these requirements in depth:

• Site selection. The perfect spot balances visibility, accessibility, and power availability. There are different regulations that rule each of these aspects that you should familiarize with. For example, the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) requires EV stations to be located within 50 miles of Alternative Fuel Corridors (AFC). And, the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) asks for charging connectors to be located within reach for individuals in wheelchairs. 

• Weather protection. Your equipment will live outside 24/7/365, so plan accordingly. This doesn’t only mean investing in water protection. It also includes cooling systems to prevent overheating, heaters to protect chargers in negative-degree weathers, and proper sealers to prevent salty air from corroding connectors.

• Security requirements. It’s important that you can guarantee your employees and customers physical security as they charge their vehicles at your station. For example, the NEVI program asks for adequate lighting, clear sightlines, and in many cases, surveillance systems. Also, every station must have fire extinguishers available at the charging location. 

EV charging compliance 

Get familiar with the EV charging station regulatory law of your county and state as these may vary. However, here are some of the basic rules you need to follow at a federal level:

• NEVI program requirements. Requires at least 4 chargers (150kW each), 97% uptime, 24/7 access, and placement near highways (≤1 mile off AFCs).

• Accessibility. Your station must comply with the ADA.

• Security and payments. Your station must support multiple payment options and can’t require customers to be subscribed to your brand to get charging rights. 

• Interoperability. Your station must comply with interoperability protocols such as ISO 15118–2 and OCPP 1.6J+.

• Department of Energy (DOE) standards. Requires you to add signage, designate public parking spaces, and offer fee transparency.

• Utility and DOE guidelines. Chargers must be affordable, equitable, user-friendly, and show cost recovery.

Operations and service requirements

When building an EV charging station, you also need to consider how you’ll monitor and maintain the chargers and support your customers. Here are some things to keep in mind: 

• Monitoring and maintenance. As the CPO, you won’t be at the station 24/7. So, you need to monitor and maintain it from a remote location. Good practices include:

  • Developing an observability platform to stay on top of your chargers’ metrics, such as session duration, session start and end times, start failure rate, or charger occupancy (more on this below)

  • Implementing alerts in case of issues (or potential ones) before they get to the user

  • Leveraging AI/ML models to predict common failure points based on usage patterns and environmental conditions. Remember that this only works if you’ve built proper ingestion pipelines, and your telemetry data and logs are well structured and accessible in real-time.

  • Integrating your monitoring tools with a CRM or ticketing platform to log and redirect the incidents to the right person 

  • Setting response protocols based on the severity of the issue. For example, all critical failures must be solved within four hours, but minor issues can take up to 72 hours.

• Customer support. NEVI requirements mandate 24/7 customer support. There are different options to follow: 

  • Hiring an in-house call center (high control, high cost)

  • Outsourcing services (lower cost, less control)

  • Adopting a hybrid approach (in-house during business hours, outsourced nights/weekends)

Funding requirements for EV charging networks

Let's talk about money. An EV charging station can be very profitable, but it isn't a cheap business to start. You need to secure capital early on. There are different options to do so, including: 

• Traditional funding options, such as bank loans

• Venture capitalists and angel investors, mostly for large charging networks

• Equipment leasing to lower the initial costs 

• Public grants, such as the NEVI program

Technology requirements for EV charging stations

On top of the infrastructure and adhering to regulatory law, your charging station also needs to adopt certain hardware and software requirements to perform as expected (97% of uptime). Let’s explore each in detail.

Hardware requirements

• Charging equipment. Your station needs to have chargers that:

  • Are compatible with most vehicles, such as CCS or CHAdeMO connectors

  • Are fast charging so people don’t spend too much time at your station

  • Can track and report on reliability metrics. This is particularly important, as CPOs often lack visibility into session diagnostics and fault patterns due to fragmented telemetry pipelines or underperforming backend integrations.

• Networking and connectivity. Your chargers need to talk to other systems and:

  • Follow protocols like the ISO 15118-20 and Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) and OCPP 2.0.1

  • Have network redundancy as backup in case your primary connection goes down

  • Guaranteeing data security by adopting end-to-end encryption. This is particularly important to protect payment information.

Software architecture

• Management systems. Your backend needs to be robust and scalable to support your operation. This means:

  • Adopting cloud-native solutions to scale easily, be more cost-efficient, and allow for remote problem resolution

  • Following a modular architecture to scale and replicate your systems easily as you expand

  • Integrating with other systems through APIs. For example, the backend needs to communicate seamlessly with the payment gateway.

• User-facing applications requirements. You have to guarantee a great customer experience. Users need to have an easy way to book a charger, find nearby stations, and get alerted of any issues in real-time. Also, users need to be able to authenticate, pay, and monitor charging status from their phone.

• Payment processing systems. Your EV station must support all types of payments, including mobile wallets. Also, it needs to be compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) for processing credit cards. And, the system needs to be connected to an accounting software for proper bookkeeping and tax calculations.

• EV charging observability. As the CPO, you NEED to know what happens during each charge. Gain visibility into voltage fluctuations, session duration, plug-in duration, authentication failures, communication protocol status, time of failure, or customer-specific data.
  To do so, you need to set up proper data streaming and ingestion pipelines, along with structured logging (e.g., JSON-based event schemas optimized for analytics) to track real-time EV charging data. Access this either via an out-of-the-box system or by developing your own. These will allow you to get insights into:

  • Station performance

  • Customer usage patterns

  • Potential future issues

  • Peak hours

  • Charger and vehicle data

Our team developed an observability platform for a CPO who works with eight major global automakers. The company plans to launch 30,000 EV charging stations across North America by 2030. But to get there, it needed to access chargers’ data during each session. “We needed to pull the data into one central spot so everyone could see it,” shares the Chief Software Engineer of EV Rechargery. 

To solve these challenges, NaNLABS and EV Rechargery worked together to build a scalable and performant observability platform. This gave the team access to real-time insights into its EV charging operations and shed light on those black boxes. This led the company to stay on top of issues, implement predictive maintenance, and improve data processing. Read the complete case study.

Choosing the right technology partners 

As mentioned, software plays a major role in a station’s performance. The right software solution makes your EV charging station:

• Interconnected

• Remotely manageable

• Interoperable

• Profitable

• Efficient, by leveraging dynamic load balancing

• Well-maintained, thanks to real-time data and predictive analysis

You can achieve some of these outcomes with an out-of-the-box solution like a CPMS (Charge Point Management System). However, developing these solutions in-house gives you full control over operations and allows you to tailor the system to your specific needs.

That said, building in-house can be expensive and time-consuming, especially when you need to meet all the requirements mentioned above. That’s why partnering with external experts to develop tailor-made, cloud-native solutions is often the best approach because:

• An experienced partner has already made the mistakes you haven’t even thought of yet

• They know how to build intuitive, integrated solutions for end users

• It frees you up to focus on the physical infrastructure and business model

But with hundreds of talented teams offering software services, how do you choose the right one?

When evaluating potential technology partners, look for teams who understand how to build low-latency data pipelines to handle charging event ingestion, anomaly detection, and predictive analytics, at scale. Also, study their:

• Industry experience. Generalist software developers often underestimate the complexity of EV charging systems. Look for partners who have successfully deployed charging solutions or have experience in the EV industry.

• Certifications. Qualified partners are often certified in communication and security protocols, cloud platforms, and relevant technologies.

• Client reviews. Check the company’s reputation on sites like Clutch.co to assess whether they’re the right match for you.

• Work methodology. Your partners should adapt to your processes and communication channels as if they were part of your in-house team. This is especially important in a fast-paced environment like EV charging. Direct, seamless communication can make all the difference in building the right solutions at the right time.

At NaNLABS, we understand the challenges of setting up an EV charging business. With over 12 years of experience and a strong, proven record working with EV charging companies, we’re well-equipped to help you fulfil this project. We’re AWS-certified partners, hold the ISO 9001:2015 certification, and are familiar with EV-specific standards, such as the OCPP and ISO 15118.

Also, as your cloud-native and real-time data engineering partners, we integrate with your team, adopt your processes, and collaborate closely to deliver the best possible solutions for your business.

Ready to launch your EV charging business? Partner with the right software engineers and meet your technical requirements without the hassle.

Get in touch

Sources

1. Outlook for electric vehicle charging infrastructure (2024). Found on: https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2024/outlook-for-electric-vehicle-charging-infrastructure

2. Electric Vehicle Benefits and Considerations (ND). Found on: https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity-benefit