EV chargers for hotels: a service for guests

Why a hotel needs EV chargers

• A deciding factor when choosing accommodation: an EV driver on the road looks for a hotel with guaranteed overnight charging, and the “charger” filter on booking sites and accommodation search engines (e.g. Charge&Sleep) sends them straight to properties that have one.
• Business guests and fleets: more and more company cars are electric, and companies choose hotels where employees can charge without hunting for a station.
• Longer time spent on site: a guest who is charging their car is more likely to stay for dinner or visit the spa instead of driving to a public station.
• Additional revenue: charging can be a paid service with its own price list, rather than a cost added to the electricity bill.
• A legal obligation: since 1 January 2025, a non-residential building in Poland with more than 20 parking spaces — including a hotel — should have at least one charging point.

How many points and what power

Hotel guests leave their car for many hours, usually overnight. That is why 11 kW AC chargers (and often even 7.4 kW) are more than enough in a hotel: over 8–10 hours of parking, they will fully charge the battery of most cars. Fast DC chargers are many times more expensive and make more sense for properties on main routes, where guests stop for an hour, e.g. for lunch.

Two to four points are usually enough to start with, and it is worth designing the installation with headroom for more from the outset. Dynamic load management (load balancing) shares the available power among the cars charging at any given moment and takes into account the consumption of the kitchen, air conditioning or spa — so additional chargers do not immediately require increasing the hotel’s connection capacity.

We confirm the number of points and the available power after analysing the grid connection and installation of the specific property.

How guests start charging

The most important rule: charging must not add work for reception. The Domena Power system lets you choose the authorisation method that suits the property:

• Room key card — with integration into the hotel system, guests unlock the charger with the same card they use to open their room, and the session is immediately assigned to their booking.
• App — guests start and stop charging on their phone and can see the energy drawn and the cost.

Charging on the room bill

The most convenient model for guests is charging added to their stay. We integrate the system with hotel software (PMS) and billing systems, including Betasi. The session is assigned to the room and booking, and the cost appears on the bill together with the accommodation, breakfast or parking — the guest pays once, at check-out.

This is how it works, for example, at the athotel35 hotel in Słupca: guests have 4 charging spaces available, authorise with their room key card, and billing is fully automated, together with the hotel’s other services.

How to set prices for guests

The hotel is its own charging operator and sets the rules itself. In practice, there are three approaches:

• Price per kWh — guests pay for the energy drawn at the hotel’s rate. The most transparent and fairest option when consumption varies.
• Day/night tariff — a cheaper night rate encourages charging outside the hotel’s peak consumption, when energy tends to be cheaper.
• Free for selected guests — e.g. in premium packages or for business guests; the system still meters every session, so the hotel knows what it costs.
• Access: guests only, staff as well, or also outside drivers, e.g. at times when the car park is empty.

How much a hotel can earn

Example: 4 chargers, 60 sessions a month averaging 30 kWh each, gives 1,800 kWh. With the hotel’s energy cost at approx. 1.00 zł/kWh and a guest rate of 2.00 zł/kWh, charging revenue is 3,600 zł and the surplus over the energy cost is 1,800 zł a month.

The Domena Power subscription for 4 chargers is 60 zł net per month (30 zł for the first and 10 zł for each additional one), and the first M2M SIM card is included. We take no commission on energy sales, so the entire surplus stays with the hotel — on a public network charging a 20% commission, the intermediary would take 720 zł a month in this example.

This calculation is illustrative: the energy cost depends on the hotel’s tariff, and the number of sessions on occupancy and guest profile. You can calculate the system cost for your number of chargers in the calculator below.

Formalities: UDT, fire safety and EIPA

• UDT: if charging is a paid service for guests, the station is subject to inspection by UDT (Urząd Dozoru Technicznego, Poland’s Office of Technical Inspection) — even if only hotel guests use it. The initial inspection is carried out before the station is commissioned.
• Fire safety: for chargers in an underground or enclosed garage, the installation design is usually approved by a certified fire-safety expert.
• EIPA: publicly accessible stations must be registered in EIPA, Poland’s Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Register. Chargers available exclusively to hotel guests are not subject to this obligation.
• Licence: a paid charging service is not a sale of energy within the meaning of Poland’s Energy Law, so the hotel does not need an energy trading licence.

The scope of formalities and the VAT treatment of charging depend on how the chargers are made available and should be confirmed for the specific property. We handle them as part of the rollout.

What the rollout looks like

If the hotel already has chargers that support the OCPP protocol, they usually do not need to be replaced — we connect them to the system regardless of the manufacturer.

• A conversation about the number of spaces, guest profile and billing method.
• Connection capacity analysis, installation assessment and design, and — where needed — fire-safety approvals.
• Installation of chargers with load management, connectivity (including via an M2M SIM card in an underground garage) and system configuration.
• Integration with the hotel system, reception training, followed by session billing, reports and servicing.