Regulations for installing an EV charger in Colombia

Colombia's Technical Regulation for Electrical Installations devotes its section 20.7 to battery chargers for electric vehicles. This is not a passing mention: it sets concrete, checkable requirements, and it is the yardstick for whether an installation was done properly.

The starting point is that installation must follow either the international standard IEC 61851-1 or section 625 of NTC 2050, the Colombian Electrical Code. These are alternative routes, not cumulative ones, and either is acceptable provided it is followed in full.

On that basis, the regulation specifies several requirements you can verify yourself in the proposal and in the finished work. The most important is residual current protection: the circuit must have a device rated at thirty milliamps or less, which is what protects a person against direct contact. Alongside it, overcurrent protection and proper earthing.

There are also physical layout requirements that serve as a quick check that whoever installed knew the rules: outlets must sit between half a metre and one and a half metres high, and each serves a single vehicle. Where the point is exposed to the weather, IPX4 protection against water and IP4X against foreign objects are required.

Section 20.7 does not stop at how the unit is installed: it also sets conditions on the charger as a product.

The unit must be designed for Colombia's standardised voltages and incorporate protection systems that prevent accidents and equipment damage. It must carry markings with verifiable information: number of phases, supply voltage, charging voltage limits, charging rate, manufacturer identification, power consumption, power factor and harmonic distortion.

That marking is the simplest check available to someone without electrical training. A unit with no legible rating plate, or with a plate that does not declare those figures, is a warning sign before you even look at the price.

The regulation also includes an obligation rarely mentioned during the sale, and worth knowing from the outset: chargers must be technically inspected at the interval the manufacturer recommends and, if none is specified, at least once a year. It is a small recurring cost, but it exists, and a serious proposal says so.

Ley 1964 de 2019 is Colombia's framework law on electric mobility. Its purpose is to promote the use of electric and zero-emission vehicles, and while much of its text addresses incentives and public infrastructure, three provisions are worth knowing if you are considering a charging point.

Article 7 requires public entities and commercial establishments offering parking to the public to allocate a minimum of two per cent of their spaces to preferential use by electric vehicles, in municipalities of special, first and second category under Ley 617 de 2000.

Article 9 sets fast charging infrastructure targets with a three-year deadline from entry into force: Bogotá must guarantee a minimum of twenty fast charging stations, and special category municipalities may guarantee a minimum of five. The difference in verb between the two cases is not accidental.

And article 10, the one that most affects a home, sets planning provisions so that new residential and commercial buildings have electrical service prepared for electric vehicle charging. If your building is recent, it is worth asking about that provision before requesting quotes: it may save you the most expensive part of the project.

This is the most frequent case in Colombian cities and the one that generates most questions, because it mixes a technical issue with a legal one.

The legal side is governed by Ley 675 de 2001, which regulates horizontal property. The question that determines everything is who owns the space where the charger goes and where the cabling runs. A privately owned parking space inside the complex is not the same as one held for exclusive use over common property, and neither is the same as running a supply through common areas to reach it.

In practice, almost any real installation touches common property at some stretch, if only the cable route. That puts the decision in the hands of the administration and, depending on the horizontal property bylaws and the scope of the work, the owners' assembly.

The route that generates least friction is to arrive with the technical project rather than an idea: where the power is taken from, where it runs, what metering is proposed so that whoever charges pays for it, what protections are included and who is liable for the work. A request carrying that information is resolved far better than an open question at an assembly.

Metering deserves separate attention, because it is what usually blocks the conversation. If the charger hangs off the communal meter with no individual metering, everyone ends up paying for the consumption, and that is the legitimate objection that will surface. Proposing independent metering up front turns the debate into a formality.

The installation ends with paperwork, not with a working unit. It is the part most often skipped and the one that supports any later claim.

The minimum you should require is evidence that the installation complies with RETIE, documentation for the installed unit with its markings and warranty, and a diagram of what was built: which circuit was created, what protections it carries and where it is fed from. Without that diagram, any future work starts by guessing.

It is also worth setting out in writing who is liable for what and for how long. A charging point carries at least two distinct warranties — the equipment warranty from the manufacturer and the installation warranty from whoever did the work — and they cover different things and are handled by different people.

And since the regulation itself requires periodic technical inspection, ask from the outset who will carry it out and what it costs. That information belongs in the proposal, not discovered a year later.