Photo by Avel Chuklanov via Unsplash
The California Energy Commission (CEC) is getting close to wrapping up a three-year process to update the statewide building code -- and the proposal on the table falls short of what is needed to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis.
This blog provides background on what the building code is and why it matters, an update on the latest developments, and highlights the leadership we need to see from the CEC.
What the building code is and why it matters
The statewide building code, sometimes called “Title 24” sets a minimum standard for all new residential and commercial construction. It is updated every three years by the California Energy Commission and the latest update, which will take effect in 2023, is being considered now. This update to the code must set California on a path to achieve our climate and clean air goals.
While the impact of highly technical policy decisions like these can seem abstract and the real-life effects are difficult to visualize, the building code can determine whether new homes built in California will run on clean electricity or will remain dependent on dirty gas, promoting the expansion of an expensive, leaky gas system that is fast becoming a stranded asset and a threat to public health and safety. A third of the buildings that will be around in 2045 will be built in the next 25 years.
Why we need a code that encourages all-electric buildings
As the electricity sector transitions toward 100 percent clean energy, California must turn its attention to using clean electricity to eliminate gas combustion in our homes and buildings. Gas appliances like furnaces and water heaters in California’s homes and buildings are responsible for nearly 50 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually. Gas appliances also create dangerous indoor air quality, as burning gas for heating and cooking produces toxic indoor air pollution like nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxides, and formaldehydes. According to a recent study by UCLA, the health impacts associated with gas appliances disproportionately impact low income households and communities of color. Continuing to expand the gas system to new homes also drives up gas rates, and everyone who still has gas (more likely to be low-income or a renter) is left paying for a system that is old, leaky, dangerous, and grows more expensive to operate each year.
How the Energy Commission should improve the building code
The Energy Commission can do this by setting the energy and greenhouse gas budgets of proposed buildings based on a standard building using only electric appliances (for example, heat pump space conditioning). Under this approach, any builder who wants to install gas appliances in a new home must make other upgrades to the building so that it emits no more greenhouse gas emissions than the all-electric alternative. Because electric space and water heating appliances are so efficient, and because our electricity grid is getting cleaner every year, it would have been very difficult or impractical for many gas buildings to meet this standard.
How the current proposal falls short
In January, the California Energy Commission presented a disappointing proposal for the 2023 code update. The agency is poised to miss a major opportunity to break clean from fossil fuels, reduce the cost of new housing, improve our health, and protect the climate.
There is broad momentum across California to make the shift to all-electric new construction. Across the state, 42 cities and counting have already adopted reach codes moving their cities toward all-electric construction. Over the last year, over 100 organizations, including environmental and environmental justice organizations but also public health groups, utilities, air districts, local governments, and architectural and business associations have called on the Energy Commission to adopt an all-electric code.
The Energy Commission’s latest proposal, however, is an empty acknowledgement of this broad coaltition’s urgent call to action, and will not result in meaningful change. Instead of basing the proposed design for new low-rise, residential construction on an all-electric building, the proposal only includes either an electric heat pump space heater or a heat pump water heater -- whichever will use the least energy in the area where the building is located. As a coalition of over 50 organizations explained in a letter to the Commission, incorporating the appliance that uses only a small fraction of a building’s anticipated energy demand will have little to no impact encouraging all-electric construction and allow gas buildings to continue to proliferate.
Governor Newsom must direct the CEC to strengthen the 2022 code
It is time for the Commission to demonstrate that it recognizes the urgency of the climate crisis, and act much more aggressively to end continued reliance on fossil fuels in buildings. It is the responsibility of the CEC, and Governor Gavin Newsom who appointed the CEC commissioners, to step up to the challenge that climate change presents, and walk boldly forward with a common sense, all electric building standard starting in 2022.