Recent California regulations mandate the installation of solar panels and battery storage in many new non-residential buildings as well as hotels and motels. The following sections summarize the requirements along with their potential benefits and challenges.

Background Information
Increasing the sustainability of energy-consuming activities requires reducing emissions to the atmosphere. Reducing energy consumption is one way to do so. Deploying zero-carbon energy sources is another. California’s 2022 Building Energy Efficiency Standards – Title 24 has adopted provisions that promote zero-carbon energy sources. California’s goal is to use 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045.

The current edition of the regulations now offers two compliance options. The first allows the use of prescriptive requirements that are already known to produce efficient energy use. The second is a performance-based option that allows greater design freedoms, provided the results meet or exceed the building efficiency metrics used in the prescriptive model. The following sections summarize the prescriptive provisions of the code.