Driving Toward a Greener Future: California Embraces Electric Vehicles in Building Codes
California governors’ executive orders have championed zero emissions vehicles (ZEVs), advancing California’s mission to widely adopt electric vehicles (EVs). A few have outlined that by 2025, the state should strive to have 1.5 million ZEVs on California roads, 250,000 ZEV chargers, and 100% of passenger car and truck sales as ZEVs.
Over the past several years, California has seen several regulations in the 2019 and 2022 California Green Buildings Standards Codes (CALGreen) that have further promoted EVs and EV infrastructure.
From the 2019 CALGreen code to the 2022 code, many substantial changes have promoted EV usage. As of 2023, a completely new requirement was added for 10% of new and altered parking spaces for multifamily dwellings to be EV-capable. Five percent of the parking spaces must have EV chargers (EVSE).
The 2022 CALGreen code also expanded tiers 1 and 2 of the voluntary measures for multifamily dwellings, hotels, and motels. In the 2022 code, the percentage of low power level 2 receptacles was increased to 35% and 40% for Tier 1 and Tier 2, respectively, compared to the respective values of 15% and 20% in the 2019 code.
Building design teams must prioritize building codes to promote safety and fire protection due to the fire hazards of EVSE. There have been reports about charging stations catching on fire due to overheating caused by design issues in batteries or management systems. Proper design and installation of EVSE promotes the use of EV cars and carbon emission reduction.
