EV Charging at Caravan Parks in Australia: Powered Sites, Park Rules and Costs (2026)

EV charging at a caravan park works, but it is slow and depends entirely on the park. Plug a portable charger into a 15 amp powered-site outlet and you add about 20 km of range an hour, so a night on site puts back somewhere between 120 and 240 km depending on your cable. A growing number of parks have proper 7 kW or 22 kW chargers. Others ban EV charging outright, and a few will charge you a fee if they catch you doing it.

That split is the real problem for anyone planning a road trip or a camping holiday in an EV. The electricity is cheap and the outlet is right there, yet the answer to “can I plug in?” changes from one park to the next, even inside the same chain. Here is what a powered site can actually deliver, which parks welcome EVs, why some don’t, and how to avoid arriving somewhere that says no.

If you are still choosing a cable for travel, our guide to the best portable EV charger in Australia covers the 10 amp and 15 amp options, and the EV chargers hub compares fixed home units.

How fast EV charging at a caravan park actually is

A powered site is a slow charger. Australian caravan parks supply powered sites through 10 amp or 15 amp outlets, and an EV charging from one of those is limited to a few kilowatts. The 2026 EV Charging in Holiday Parks industry guide, prepared by the RACE for 2030 research centre and the University of South Australia, puts a 10 amp portable charger at about 1.8 kW and a 15 amp outlet at up to 3.4 kW.

Here is what that means in range, based on a typical EV using about 16 kWh per 100 km plus some charging losses:

Power source	Approx. power	Range added per hour	Time to add 100 km	Range from a 12-hour night
10 amp portable charger	1.8 kW	about 10 km	8 to 11 hours	about 120 km
15 amp powered-site outlet	up to 3.4 kW	about 20 km	4 to 6 hours	about 200 to 240 km
Park 7 kW AC charger	7 kW	about 40 km	about 2.5 hours	full charge for most EVs
Park 22 kW AC charger	limited by your car’s OBC	about 40 to 65 km	1.5 to 2.5 hours	full charge

Time-to-100 km figures from the RACE for 2030 / UniSA holiday park guide (2026). Range-per-hour figures are Gridly estimates at 16 kWh/100 km.

So a powered site won’t refill a flat battery overnight, but it can easily replace a day’s local driving. If you arrive with 30% and need 80% to reach the next town, two nights on site or one DC fast charge on the way in will usually do it.

One catch with the faster park chargers. A 22 kW AC charger only delivers 22 kW to a car whose on-board charger can accept it. The on-board charger (OBC) is the component inside your car that converts AC power from the outlet into DC power for the battery. Most EVs sold here top out at 7 kW or 11 kW on AC, and a car with a single-phase on-board charger can only use one phase of a three-phase unit, so it may get a fraction of the rated power, as our single-phase vs three-phase charging guide explains. Use the charger speed calculator to see what your car will actually pull.

Which caravan parks have EV chargers

Dedicated chargers are spreading, mostly in NSW, and the big operators publish where they are. Three examples show the range of approaches:

NRMA Parks and Resorts. According to NRMA’s own charging page (published March 2024), 22 of its parks have chargers: 11 in NSW, 6 in Victoria, 4 in Queensland and 1 in South Australia. Most are 22 kW units, with four 7 kW sites. Guests in a cabin with its own charger charge for free. Communal chargers cost a fee and are also open to the public. If you want a cabin with a charger, book it directly.

Reflections Holiday Parks (NSW). Reflections has 7 kW Type 2 chargers with cables at nine parks: Ferry Reserve, Evans Head, Lennox Head, Coffs Harbour, Bonny Hills, Tuncurry, Tumut River, Eden and Bermagui. As of October 2026 charging is free for paying guests but not available to day visitors. The catch: you may only charge at the designated EV bays, and you’re asked to move the car once it is full.

BIG4 and other franchise chains. BIG4 parks are independently owned, so there is no chain-wide rule. Some BIG4 parks welcome EVs. Others, such as the Stratford and Torrumbarry Weir parks in Victoria and Barham in NSW, state on their booking pages that EV charging is not permitted anywhere in the park and list a $40 fee for anyone who does it. Port Fairy Anchorage lists $50 a day and points guests to a public charger in town (all as of November 2026). A guest at one BIG4 park recently reported terms banning the charging of “any form of lithium batteries”, with an exception for mobility aids. Read literally, that covers a phone. Meanwhile owners report on-site chargers at other BIG4 parks, including Mount Gambier and Wagga Wagga, so the brand tells you nothing on its own. Discovery Parks and Tasman Holiday Parks have no published chain policy that we could find, though individual parks list chargers or allow charging case by case.

Much of this growth is government-funded. The NSW Government’s EV Destination Charging Grants offered $20 million in co-funding to tourism businesses, caravan parks included. According to the NSW Government’s October 2024 update, the first two rounds paid $5.2 million towards 1,357 charging ports at 513 sites. Reflections used that program to fund its chargers. The third round of NSW destination grants ($12 million) closed in March 2025. Tasmania opened a similar destination charging grant for tourism businesses in mid-2026, so expect more park chargers there too.

To find them, PlugShare is the most complete crowd-sourced map, and NSW publishes its own charging map. Chargefox runs the NRMA park chargers.

Why some parks say no to EVs on powered sites

Parks that ban EV charging usually point to load, and that concern is partly fair. A caravan’s appliances cycle: the kettle boils for two minutes, the air conditioner’s compressor switches on and off. An EV pulls close to its full rated current for eight hours or more. One car is fine. Ten cars on sites that share a circuit, on a hot night when every van is also running air conditioning, can trip breakers or push an older park supply past what it was designed for.

The RACE for 2030 guide makes the cost side concrete. Topping up one EV after a 300 km drive uses as much energy as five to ten cabins do in a day, roughly $25 worth of electricity. That is hard for a park to absorb when it charges the same site fee whether you plug in a camper fridge or a car.

EV owners push back on two points, and they have a case too:

• The load argument is uneven. A large van running two air conditioners on a summer night can draw close to the same 15 amps, yet parks rarely restrict it. A portable charger can also be turned down. Many cars let you cap the charge current at 8 or 10 amps.
• Safety claims are often overstated. A charger drawing 8 to 10 amps from a sound, correctly rated 15 amp outlet is working within that outlet’s rating. Where a park’s wiring or sockets aren’t up to continuous loads, that’s a legitimate reason to restrict charging, but it’s a fault in the park’s installation, not something every EV causes.

Some parks have gone technical rather than banning EVs. Owners report sites with metering that cuts power to a site once it uses more than a set amount of energy in a given period. If your power drops mid-charge, that’s likely why.

Fire rules: what the Victorian guidance actually says

Fire risk is the other reason you’ll see, and the wording can overstate it. BIG4 Wangaratta North Cedars says CFA guidelines prohibit EV charging in the park. Wynndean Holiday Resorts at Ocean Grove also cites Victorian fire and electrical safety advice for its ban. However, the CFA’s caravan park fire safety page does not state a ban. It lists EV charging stations and battery storage among the hazards parks must identify, manage and maintain safely. We could not open the full 16.5 MB 2024 guideline, so a park may be reading a specific clause we haven’t seen.

That doesn’t give you a right to plug in. The park sets its own conditions either way, and a park that says no is still entitled to refuse. It does mean a park worried about hazards has options other than a blanket ban, such as a dedicated charger placed well away from the vans.

E-bikes and e-scooters get separate treatment. BIG4 Barham and Torrumbarry Weir allow them on external outlets only, never inside a cabin, van, tent or annexe, and may restrict charging on high fire danger days. BIG4 Red Cliffs bans charging them anywhere on site and says repeat breaches can end your stay without a refund. If a bike is part of your trip, check this as well as the car.

How to charge at a caravan park without trouble

Ask before you book, not at reception. Policies vary park to park, so the only reliable answer comes from the park itself. A park that says no on arrival can wreck a trip plan built around that overnight top-up, especially in regional areas with few DC fast chargers.

Before you plug in:

1. Check the booking terms. Some parks state their EV policy in the online T&Cs or on the site listing. If it isn’t mentioned, email or call and get the answer in writing.
2. Ask about fees up front. Some parks treat EV charging as included, some charge a flat nightly fee, and some only allow it at a paid communal charger. Owners report one-off fees of about $20 to $30 at private parks that agree to it. Owners also report more short-stay rentals restricting EV charging, so ask there too.
3. Bring the right cable tail. A 10 amp plug fits a 15 amp socket, but not the other way around. A charger with a swappable 15 amp tail roughly doubles your overnight range on a powered site. Several portable chargers sold here come with interchangeable 10, 15 and 32 amp tails.
4. Skip the household extension lead. Caravan power boxes are often cramped, which tempts people to use one. A light-duty extension lead isn’t made for hours of near-maximum current. If you need reach, use a heavy-duty lead rated for 15 amps and fully unrolled, or position the car closer.
5. Turn the current down at peak times. Setting the car to 8 amps overnight, or scheduling charging to finish before you leave, reduces the load on the park circuit and makes it less likely you’ll trip the breaker for your neighbours.
6. Use the dedicated charger if there is one. Where a park has its own chargers, it usually expects you to use them rather than the site outlet. Move the car once it’s full.

If you’re travelling with a caravan behind the EV, plan for more than one night of slow charging. Towing typically cuts range by 45 to 55% at highway speeds, which means a powered site’s overnight 200 km covers far less of the next day’s drive. Our EV towing guide covers real-world towing range by model.

Powered site or fast charger: which makes more sense on a road trip?

For most trips, use both. The powered site handles the slow overnight top-up, and a DC fast charger on the way in or out handles the big jumps. If tomorrow’s drive is under about 150 km, a night on a 15 amp site will usually cover it. If tomorrow is a 400 km day, stop at a fast charger before you pull into the park, then let the site add what it can overnight.

Here is a rough way to decide:

Situation	Best option
Short hops, multi-night stay	Powered site only
Long drive tomorrow, park allows charging	Fast charger on arrival plus overnight top-up
Park bans EV charging	Fast charger in town before check-in
Park has a 7 kW or 22 kW charger	Use it; you’ll likely leave full
Towing a caravan	Fast charger every stop, park power as a bonus

Public DC fast charging generally costs far more per kWh than the electricity a park includes with a powered site. For a sense of the full trip cost, our EV road trip planning guide breaks down which regional routes have reliable fast chargers and where you’ll lean on slower destination charging.

Camping with an EV: using the car as the power source

Some EVs can work the other way round and power your campsite. Vehicle-to-load (V2L) is a feature that lets the car’s battery run household appliances through an adapter or a built-in outlet. It is handy on an unpowered site: you can run a kettle, lights, a fridge or a laptop charger from the car. Output is limited to a few kilowatts, enough for camp appliances but not a full caravan air conditioner for hours. Our V2L guide lists which models support it in Australia.

Several EVs also have a camp or climate-keep mode that holds the cabin temperature overnight while parked. Owners who sleep in the car report charging and running the climate control on the same powered site at once, with the charge rate turned down so the battery reaches its target just before departure. If you plan to do that, check the park’s rules on sleeping in a vehicle when you ask about charging.