By Alexandr Godonoaga, owner of Cob Services LLC. Illinois licensed electrician (License #26-00032356) and ICC-certified EV charger installer serving Naperville and the western suburbs. Published July 7, 2026.
The Illinois Electric Vehicle Charging Act took effect on January 1, 2024, and if you own or manage an apartment or condo building in Naperville, it already applies to you in two ways. Tenants and unit owners now have a legal right to install a charger at their parking space, in existing buildings, today. And if you are building new or converting a rental property to condos, the law can require up to 100 percent of your parking spaces to be EV-capable. There is a third thing I tell every owner before they pick up the phone about rebates: most of Naperville is not ComEd territory. The city runs its own electric utility, and that one fact decides which incentive programs your building can actually use.
I install EV charging stations for multifamily and commercial properties across Naperville, Lisle, Downers Grove, Aurora, Plainfield, and Bolingbrook. This is the same walkthrough I give owners on a site visit, with the parts of the law that matter, the parts people get wrong, and the rebate picture as it actually stands in July 2026.
What the law requires, and of which buildings
The Act (765 ILCS 1085) splits residential buildings by size. A small multifamily building, meaning 2 to 4 units, built new after the law took effect needs at least one EV-capable parking space for every unit that has dedicated parking. A large multifamily building, meaning 5 or more units, is where the number jumps: for building permits issued from late March 2024 on, a new large building must have 100 percent of its parking spaces EV-capable.
That same 100 percent rule reaches one category of existing buildings: a large rental property that a developer renovates while converting it to a condominium or common interest association. The legislature did include an out here. If meeting the requirement would force the developer to excavate an existing surface lot or parking structure to lay conduit, the mandate does not apply to that lot. Affordable housing developments run on a slower schedule instead: 40 percent of spaces EV-capable for permits issued starting January 1, 2026, rising to 50 percent in 2029 and 70 percent in 2034. The U.S. Department of Energy keeps a plain language summary of all of this on its Alternative Fuels Data Center.
If your existing rental building is not being converted to an association, the parking percentages do not apply to you. The tenant rights section, covered next, absolutely does.
What EV-capable actually means on a job site
EV-capable does not mean installed chargers. It means two things are in place during construction: panel capacity reserved for future charging circuits, and conduit or raceway run to the parking spaces, sized for a 208 or 240 volt circuit at 40 amps or more. The statute is explicit that nobody has to pull wire through that conduit yet. My advice on every new build is to upsize the conduit beyond the code minimum while the trench is open. Conduit is cheap. Cutting a finished parking lot three years later is not.
The part that applies to your existing building right now
Section 35 of the Act gives tenants the right to install a Level 1 or Level 2 charger at the parking space allotted to them, and it requires landlords to permit that installation under reasonable conditions. The cost structure favors you as the owner. The tenant pays for the install, and you can require reimbursement for the electricity used, or a fee where a networked charger bills the driver directly. You can also collect a security deposit to cover restoring the space when the tenant leaves. What you cannot do is flatly refuse or bury the request in conditions designed to kill it.
Condo boards face a stricter version. A December 2023 amendment extended the Act’s association rules to every Illinois condominium association, new and existing, effective January 1, 2024. An association cannot prohibit or unreasonably restrict a charger in an owner’s designated parking space. It can require board approval, a licensed and insured electrical contractor, a certificate of insurance naming the association within 14 days of approval and annually after that, and compliance with architectural standards. A board that willfully violates the Act owes the unit owner actual damages plus a civil penalty of up to $500, and the fee shifting only runs one direction: the owner can recover attorney fees, the association cannot. The law firm Levenfeld Pearlstein published a useful breakdown of the amendment if your board wants the full legal detail.
The pattern I see in the field: a building gets its first tenant request, handles it as a one-off, then gets three more requests the next year and ends up with four different wiring approaches on one panel. Write an EV policy before the first request arrives. Decide once how metering and billing will work, and every request after that becomes paperwork instead of a project.
Check which utility your building is on before you call ComEd
Here is the detail that surprises owners most. Naperville operates its own municipal electric utility, and it serves nearly all of the city proper. If your building’s electric bill comes from the City of Naperville, ComEd’s rebate programs do not apply to you at all. The city’s own guidance for apartment and condominium EV charging says to contact the Naperville Electric Utility early in project planning, and it means it. The utility reviews whether its transformers and service to your building can carry the new load before a permit moves.
Naperville’s current incentive is up to $500 per Level 2 or Level 3 charging station, for residential and nonresidential use, and it comes with strings. The station has to be hardwired, permitted through the city, and connected to a City of Naperville electric meter, and the applicant has to contribute to the city’s Renewable Energy Program, a small monthly add-on with a multi-year commitment. Funds are budgeted annually with no waiting list, so check the current year’s terms before you count the money.
Now the ComEd side. Lisle, Downers Grove, Aurora, Plainfield, Bolingbrook, and some unincorporated pockets that carry Naperville mailing addresses are ComEd territory. ComEd put roughly $70 million into EV rebates for 2026, and the piece that matters for apartment owners is the Business and Public Sector Make-Ready program, which has offered in the range of $5,000 to $7,500 per port toward the infrastructure costs of Level 2 stations. A multifamily property needs a commercial ComEd account to apply, and for 2026 the rebate reservation track is limited to projects located in low-income or equity investment eligible communities. Everything is first come, first served until the annual funds run out, and this year’s program window closes December 31, 2026. Program details live on ComEd’s EV rebate page. If you are comparing what your residents would deal with on the home charging side, I wrote a separate walkthrough of the ComEd residential rebate earlier this year.
So the first question on any multifamily EV project in this area is not which charger. It is which utility. Pull an electric bill and look at the logo. The mailing address will lie to you; the bill will not.
The federal charger tax credit is gone as of last week
For two years, the Section 30C federal tax credit covered up to 30 percent of commercial charging installation costs, capped at $100,000 per port, for projects in eligible census tracts that met prevailing wage rules. The 2025 federal budget law cut it short. The credit ended for any charging property placed in service after June 30, 2026, which was eight days ago. If your stations were installed and operational by that date, your CPA can still claim the credit on your 2026 return using Form 8911, so keep every invoice. If a vendor quotes a project today with “30 percent federal tax credit” baked into the payback math, that number is stale, and I would ask what else in the quote is.
What I check on a site walk before anyone applies for anything
Rebate applications and tenant policies both come after the electrical reality, so a site walk comes first. Mine covers five things.
- Service capacity. A load study tells us whether the building’s existing service can carry new 40 to 60 amp circuits or whether we are talking to the utility about an upgrade. This one answer shapes the whole budget.
- Metering and billing. Chargers can run off the house meter with networked billing that charges each driver, or off dedicated metering. Picking this once, building-wide, is what saves condo boards from the four-different-setups problem.
- Ports now versus conduit for later. Most buildings do not need a charger at every space today. They need a few live ports and cheap conduit paths to the rest.
- Placement. ADA-compliant station locations, bollard protection, snow plow clearance, and run lengths sized so voltage drop does not quietly throttle charging speed.
- Permits and credentials. Naperville projects need a city permit with a load calculation. And under Illinois law, the vendor installing your chargers must be certified through the Illinois Commerce Commission. I am, and it is worth asking any bidder to show that credential before you sign.
If you want a sense of real project math, I broke down per-port commercial installation costs for a Lisle business last month, and the numbers translate to apartment lots. For owners still sorting out the equipment side, my commercial versus residential charger guide covers the hardware differences in plain terms.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Illinois EV Charging Act apply to existing apartment buildings in Naperville?
Partly. The EV-capable parking percentages only apply to new construction and to large buildings a developer renovates while converting them to a condo association. The tenant and unit owner right to install a charger applies to existing buildings right now, so your leases and condo rules should already account for it.
Can a condo association in Illinois say no to an EV charger?
Not outright. Under the Act, an association cannot prohibit or unreasonably restrict a charger in an owner’s designated parking space. It can require board approval, a licensed and insured contractor, proof of insurance, and compliance with building codes. A willful violation exposes the association to actual damages, a civil penalty of up to $500, and the owner’s attorney fees.
Who pays when a tenant wants a charger installed?
The tenant. The law lets a landlord require the tenant to cover installation, electricity through reimbursement or a networked charger that bills directly, maintenance, and removal, and to post a security deposit for restoring the space. The landlord’s job is to allow the install under reasonable written conditions, not to fund it.
Are there still EV charger rebates for Naperville multifamily buildings in 2026?
Yes, but they depend on your utility. Buildings on Naperville Electric Utility can apply for the city’s incentive of up to $500 per hardwired, permitted station. Buildings in ComEd territory may qualify for the Make-Ready program, which has offered roughly $5,000 to $7,500 per Level 2 port, though 2026 reservations are limited to equity-designated areas. The federal Section 30C tax credit expired June 30, 2026.
Do I need a permit to add EV charging to my building’s parking lot?
Yes. In Naperville proper that means a City of Naperville permit with a load calculation, and the city asks apartment and condo projects to contact its Electric Utility early in planning. Illinois also requires the installing vendor to be certified through the Illinois Commerce Commission, so ask for the ICC credential before you sign anything.
Talk through your building before you commit to anything
Every multifamily EV project in this area starts the same way: confirm the utility, confirm the panel, then pick the program. I do that in one free site walk. Call Cob Services LLC at (630) 427-5923 or request a visit online, and I will tell you what your building can support, what the law requires of you, and which incentives are actually still on the table this year. We serve Naperville, Lisle, Downers Grove, Aurora, Plainfield, Bolingbrook, and the surrounding DuPage and Will County suburbs.