The Warren-Alquist Act establishes the CEC as California’s primary energy policy and planning agency.3 The CEC is required to adopt regulations to reduce the wasteful, uneconomic, inefficient, or unnecessary consumption of energy, including the energy associated with the use of water, and to manage energy loads to help maintain electrical grid reliability.” This is done through amendments to the Building Energy Efficiency Standards contained in the California Code of Regulations, Title 24, Part 6 (hereinafter, the “Energy Code”) on a three-year cycle. The Energy Code includes energy efficiency standards applicable to the construction of new buildings and additions and alterations to existing buildings. The CEC is required to adopt or revise standards that shall be cost-effective when taken in their entirety and when amortized over the economic life of the structure compared with historic practice.
