News Analysis

California Takes Concrete Steps Toward Net-Zero-Energy Buildings

CPUC’s action plan offers common-sense strategies for moving the market toward net-zero-energy performance. Raising minimum energy performance through codes, expanding energy codes to address all energy end uses, developing financial tools for supporting net-zero-energy construction, and supporting integrated design are all mentioned as strategies for new construction. For existing buildings, the action plan suggests tightening code thresholds, requiring energy and carbon emissions labeling, and supporting occupant feedback and training.

California updates its energy codes every three years, leaving only a handful of code cycles before the 2030 target for net-zero-energy commercial buildings. “It’s not going to happen just because in 2027 someone wakes up,” said Commissioner Dian Grueneich of CPUC. The action plan, she says, will ensure that progress toward the net-zero-energy goal is steady, that there are demonstrations of its financial and technical feasibility, and that it will indeed happen.

Published September 29, 2010

Wendt, A. (2010, September 29). California Takes Concrete Steps Toward Net-Zero-Energy Buildings. Retrieved from https://www.buildinggreen.com/news-analysis/california-takes-concrete-steps-toward-net-zero-energy-buildings