Following a scoping workshop held in December 2022, the California Energy Commission (CEC) is seeking stakeholder comment on how to design the Equitable Building Decarbonization Program authorized by Assembly Bill 209. The Program includes a direct install program focused on low-to-moderate income residents and a statewide incentive program to accelerate deployment of low-carbon building technologies.
Interested parties now have until January 20, 2023 to provide comments on the CEC’s Request for Information questions, including:
Direct Install Program Criteria
- How should criteria be prioritized when scoring program proposals for this $610 million program?
- Should participants or the CEC itself provide measures for targeting and prioritization?
- Should low-income and moderate-income households receive different levels of incentives?
- Whether/how to encourage layering of incentives
- How to facilitate proposals to electrify specific neighborhoods
- How to develop and enforce tenant protections
Direct Install Third-Party Implementers and Solicitation Scoring
- How to segment the state for multiple implementer solicitation
- How to leverage opportunities for workforce development
- Should maximum incentives be established?
- How to facilitate awareness of program opportunity for under-resourced communities and California Native American Tribes and Tribal Organizations
- Should the CEC fund proposals from existing decarbonization programs?
Direct Install Eligible Equipment and Installation
The statute broadly defines eligible measures (including energy efficient electric appliances, energy efficient measures, demand flexibility measures, wiring and panel upgrades, building infrastructure upgrades, efficient air conditioning systems, ceiling fans, and other measures to protect against extreme heat, remediation and safety measures), and the CEC plans to require the use of meter data driven analytical tools to inform what measures should be prioritized based on greenhouse gas reduction, energy reduction, and bill impacts.
- Should the CEC establish equipment standards?
- How should the CEC consider equipment and measures that increase individual energy use?
- Whether/how to consider measures by climate zone, other regional factors?
- What load flexibility requirements should be included, prioritized?
- How to include and reflect the needs of mobile and manufactured homes
Statewide Incentive Program
- How to prioritize allocation of funds for manufacture, distribution, sale, installation, financing and direct purchase of equipment
- Are there gaps in current incentive offerings that could be addressed to advance market for low- and zero-carbon building technologies?
- Should there be criteria for disposal of replaced equipment (e.g. refrigerants)?
- Leverage/align with federal Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act?
- Data for tracking program performance and evaluating success?
For more information, contact Lynn Haug
