The brutal world of owners corporations – and how to get them to electrify apartments

If the electrification of apartments is a marathon, we haven’t yet reached the first 100 metre mark, says Fred Tuckwell, strata management expert and board chair of the Owners Corporation Network.

In the lead-up to our upcoming March edition of TFE Review magazine, which will include a special feature on apartments and electrification, Tuckwell met up with The Fifth Estate to discuss how to get this party happening.

First up – three things to know about OCN’s chairman

There’s a few important things to know about Fred Tuckwell. The first is that he had a “fairly vicious grounding” in strata management when, 10 years ago, he and his wife bought a central Sydney penthouse with an incredible view of the harbour but horrible internals. Their building is part of a housing complex in Potts Point dubbed the “three ugly ducklings” by the City of Sydney, and includes no less than 175 lots.

After successfully navigating the intricacies of their self-managed owners’ corporation, which is highly unusual for such a big building, Tuckwell completed a significant renovation and was then offered the chairman’s role. Fearlessly, he took it on.

The second is that he loves fast cars. “I’ve always been a performance car person, and electric vehicles (EVs) are something that I’m into. I’m actually going to buy one tomorrow,” he says. Tuckwell’s wife already has one, and he’s been waiting for the right version that can compete with the Porsches, BMWs and Mercedes that he’s already owned. Polestar 4 is the one – apparently; quicker than any of them.

The third is that he’s neck-deep in sustainability. He and his wife became “COVID refugees” when, back in 2020, they were staring down the barrel of cancelling travel plans and being locked down in their apartment building.

They went on a trip down the NSW coast and never returned, settling into a property about four hours south of Sydney. They now live in the country, totally off-grid with their own water and sewerage systems, charging their EV from solar panels. “We rarely use any resources at all,” he says.

What does the OCN do?

After five years of managing their Sydney building’s strata corporation, Tuckwell passed it onto an external manager (easier for all) and moved up to chairing the Owners Corporation Network (OCN). This organisation provides advocacy and education for strata owners and residents, acting as an independent voice for the stakeholders involved in apartments and other types of strata titled residential properties.

They do things like advocating for legislation and policy reforms, facilitating discussion forums for members, developing educational materials, and generally helping groups to build harmonious communal living environments.

They also have a clear sustainability vision, aimed at creating “a better future in residential strata and community living and ownership … [with] resilient, empowered communities living in climate ready, defect free buildings.”

According to Tuckwell, the OCN is a small but well-respected organisation that punches above its weight, having put in over 130 submissions to government over the past 10 years. Given that strata regulations are state based, it has largely focused on NSW to date. But it recently brought on two new board members from Queensland and Victoria, aiming to expand its services.

What’s been done up until now and who are the players?

As Tuckwell points out in his marathon analogy, the electrification of residential buildings in Australia is still in its infancy.

Given that he comes from a technical background, having worked for Telstra and its predecessor Telecom Australia for 45 years, Tuckwell felt the need to start pushing sustainability in the strata sector with something concrete and achievable.

This took the form of writing up the guidelines for making apartment buildings EV ready for the NSW government’s website, which led to the establishment of a grant program. Launched in 2023, this scheme is providing $10 million in funding for eligible multi-residential buildings, aiming to support the 15 per cent of the state’s population that live in apartments in moving to EVs.

Tuckwell was also on the expert advisory panel for the grants, and reports positive results and good progress to date. This is supported by recent research.

More recently he moved onto discussions with NSW’s Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen about expanding into the broader electrification of residential buildings, but hasn’t yet succeeded in progressing or receiving funding for this.

Meanwhile the OCN is also working on a partnership with Dr Hazel Easthope of UNSW’s City Futures Research Centre to be part of Race for 2030. This industry-led cooperative research centre, which has $68.5M in commonwealth funding to accelerate the transition to clean energy, includes a research stream for homes.

Tuckwell is currently co-developing a project on the sustainability of apartment buildings with UNSW, which includes electrification but is also broader than that. He’s hoping the partnership will soon secure funding for this work.

Other players include:

• Allume energy, which is installing solar sharing systems in apartment buildings up to eight storeys with less than 50 apartments and a common property rooftop. It uses a smart hardware system called SolShare to physically split the electricity and an algorithm to distribute it equally.
• Solar Citizens, which is calling for extensions to successful clean energy schemes such as the federal government’s Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme and the NSW Peak Demand Reduction Scheme, to build incentives and support for apartment buildings both with and without rooftop solar. This includes the installation of behind-the-meter batteries that can act as “solar sponges” to store excess energy generated by local networks of solar panels during the day at cheap prices, to be used when needed.
• Wattblock’s work in developing the eco apartment building sector in NSW.

What are the barriers?

As Australia’s housing crisis rolls on, more and more people are moving into apartments. Dealing with the barriers to electrifying apartments, particularly in terms of retrofitting existing units, is becoming ever more critical.

According to Tuckwell, one of the main problems is that the perspectives of owners are generally representative of the broader community. “So you’ve got believers and disbelievers … if you have a look at the last election, it’s 33 per cent rusted-on labor/left, 33 per cent rusted-on right, and 33 per cent in the middle. So that’s roughly how the issues are represented.”

With EV charging of vehicles, he explains, this means some people will support it, while others will oppose it and make unrealistic demands, such as putting a petrol pump in the building as well. These types of disagreements can quickly stall any progress. “That’s the war you’re having – just ridiculous,” he says.

And these types of battles pale into insignificance when dealing with the bigger issues around electrifying buildings as a whole, including getting rid of gas, replacing it with heat pumps, installing solar, induction cooking, energy efficient appliances and so on. Hence the need for further research and support, which Tuckwell and organisations like Solar Citizens hope can be obtained.

Other barriers to the electrification of apartments include:

• Lack of case studies of successful retrofits, including real life experiences of strata owners.
• Lack of any database mapping electrification trials and success-stories in the Australian context.
• Tradies actively opposing electrification, for example the recent media release from Master Plumbers NSW discouraging the move to all-electric to reduce the impact of power outages.
• Finding ways to address the challenges that electrification is bringing to the power supply and stability of the grid, for example “big batteries” and networking home batteries into virtual power plants.
• Lack of support for addressing easy “low hanging fruit” solutions, such as installing energy efficient appliances.

Where to next?

TFE is all about progressing the conversation to stimulate ideas and action.

Leading up to our March 2025 issue of the TFE Review magazine, we’ll be doing just that – getting people together to work out where we’re up to in retrofitting existing apartments to make them sustainable and electric, and where to from here. Bring it on!

-with Tina Perinotto

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