Background
In February 2013, the California Public Utilities Commission (“CPUC”) adopted “zero-net-energy” goals for new construction in California[1]. These policy goals intend to achieve zero-net-energy building standards by 2020 for low-rise residential buildings and by 2030 for commercial buildings. A “Zero-Net-Energy Code Building” is one where the net amount of energy produced by on-site renewable energy resources is equal to the value of the energy consumed annually by the building. State legislation would follow aimed at aggressively implementing these energy policies.
On September 28, 2013 the Governor signed into law Assembly Bill (“AB”) 1092 (Levine), which required the California Building Standards Commission (“CBSC”) to adopt, approve, codify, and publish mandatory building standards for the installation of future electric vehicle charging infrastructure for parking spaces in residential and nonresidential development. In order to ensure success in meeting the zero-net-energy goals and the intent of legislation like AB 1092, the CBSC and Department of Housing and Community Development (“HCD”) have developed building standards for electric vehicle service equipment (“EVSE”). These standards will be incorporated into the California Building Standards Code and will become effective statewide in 2015. All construction projects applying for building permits in Contra Costa County after July 1, 2015 will be required to comply with these standards.
Discussion
The CBSC is in their 2016 Triennial Code Adoption Cycle. Various State agencies have submitted proposed code changes for the CBSC to consider including in the 2016 Building Standards Code. Various sections of the California Building Standards Code are being updated to implement policies for achieving the zero-net-energy goals for new construction (e.g. building code, residential building code, electrical code, mechanical code, plumbing code, energy code, fire code, green building standards code). EVSE charging requirements are just a portion of updates to the Building Standards Code to take effect either July 1, 2015 (Statewide effective date of the 2013 California Code Supplements) or January 1, 2017 (Statewide Effective Date of the 2016 California Building Standards Code).
Therefore, it’s important to note that the updates to the Building Standards Code will mandate additional building and construction requirements that would ultimately impact the total cost of residential and non-residential development. With that in mind, the CBSC worked collaboratively with State agencies (HCD, Division of the State Architect, Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development) to thoughtfully develop updates to the California Green Building Standards Code. The EVSE requirements have been developed to be reasonably effective in achieving the State’s zero-net-energy goals, while at the same time not imposing onerous and cost prohibitive mandates that would create challenges for the building industry and in turn the consumer market.
Effective July 1, 2015[1], newly constructed one- and two-family residences will be required to provide a dedicated raceway or conduit in their design and construction to accommodate a dedicated 208/240-volt branch circuit for EV charging. Multi-family and non-residential development will be required to provide the same basic EV charging infrastructure based on a percentage of the total required parking. A summary of the Green Building Standards Code’s statewide mandatory, Tier 1, and Tier 2 EVSE standards are shown in the table in “Exhibit A.”
The mandatory standards (“Exhibit B”) will be automatically adopted statewide on July 1, 2015. However, the HCD and CBSC also provided two additional tiers of compliance for EVSE, which gives a jurisdiction the option of adopting slightly more stringent ordinance standards (“Exhibits C and D”).
[1] The HCD submitted the proposed code amendments during the “Intervening Code Adoption Cycle.” Therefore, the proposed code amendments will take effect July 1, 2015.
[1] Integrated Energy Policy Report – California Energy Commission (2013)
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