Reliability, Renewable Energy & Decarbonization Incentives Division

The RREDI Division boldly pursues a dual mission to support a reliable and resilient state electrical grid system and the promotion of renewable energy and energy efficiency in the advancement of equitable building decarbonization.

The RREDI Division is administratively organized into two sections to pursue our dual mission: 

Renewable Energy and Grid Reliability

The Renewable Energy and Grid Reliability Section is supported by the following programs:

The Demand Side Grid Support Program offers incentives to electric customers that provide load reduction and backup generation to support the state’s electrical grid during extreme events, reducing the risk of blackouts. The program will compensate eligible customers and aggregators enrolled with their electric retail supplier for upfront capacity commitments and per-unit reductions in net energy load during extreme events.

The Distributed Electricity Backup Assets Program incentives the construction of cleaner and more efficient distributed energy assets that serve on-call emergency supply load or load reduction for the state’s electrical grid during extreme events. All funding recipients under the program shall participate as an on-call emergency resource for the state during extreme events.

The Geothermal Grant and Loan Program promotes the development of geothermal resources and supporting technologies by offering grant opportunities and other resources to participating parties. The program funds the development of geothermal resources with money from the state’s Geothermal Resources Development Account.

The Renewable Energy for Agriculture Program (REAP) Program offers grants that encourage the installation of renewable energy technologies serving agricultural operations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Residential Solar Permit Reporting Program is the Energy Commission reporting hub for California cities and counties to annually provide data about online automated solar permitting. The goal of the program is to streamline permitting for solar energy systems to promote the development of solar energy and storage projects in the state, contributing to larger efforts that help California meet its clean energy goals.

The Energy Commission’s Solar Equipment Lists includes equipment that meets established national safety and performance standards. These lists provide information and data that support existing solar incentive programs, utility grid connection services, consumers, and state and local programs.

The CEC Solar for All Program will administer a portion of funds from the California Solar for All Program (CA-SFA) grant award focused on the targeted communities in the Publicly Owned Utilities (POUs) service areas (referred to as CA-POU-SFA). CA-SFA, implemented through a multi-agency coalition, is in the planning stage and seeks to accelerate the equitable deployment of solar and storage systems to advance statewide decarbonization efforts and reduce electric bill pressures on low-income and disadvantaged communities, and California Native American tribes. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is the lead and point of contact for this multi-agency effort.

Building Decarbonization

The Building Decarbonization Section is supported by the following programs:

The Building Initiative for Low-Emissions Development (BUILD) Program is a residential building decarbonization program that provides incentives and technical assistance to support the adoption of advanced building designs and all electric technologies in homes. This program includes new low-income all-electric homes and multifamily buildings.

The California Electric Homes Program (CalEHP) incentivizes the construction of new market-rate residential buildings and installation of energy storage  systems to encourage deployment of newer-zero-emission building technologies.

The California Schools Healthy Air, Plumbing and Efficiency Program(CalSHAPE) provides funding to upgrade heating, air conditioning, and ventilation systems in public schools and replaces non-compliant plumbing fixtures and appliances that fail to meet water efficiency standards. CalSHAPE includes two grant programs, CalSHAPE Plumbing and CalSHAPE Ventilation, for eligible parties within the service territories of the large electric and natural gas utilities in California.

The Energy Conservation Assistance Act offers zero-interest rate loans to public schools and one (1) percent rate loans to public entities and California Native American Tribes. Loans finance, energy efficiency and energy generation projects, energy storage systems, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

The goals of the Equitable Building Decarbonization Program are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and advance energy equity. In addition to reducing GHG emissions, the program will strive to  encourage resiliency to extreme heat, improve indoor air quality, improve energy affordability, and provide electric grid support, and increase payments of prevailing wages to the implementing workplace.

The Federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will provide funding for residential energy efficiency and electrification. For households with low or moderate income, it funds point-of-sale rebates for qualified high-efficiency electric appliances, such as heat pumps for space heating and cooling.