Project Overview

A California utility’s Code Readiness Program commissioned a Phase 1 technology and market assessment to identify strategies for reducing and managing building peak electric demand through California’s Title 24, Part 6 Building Energy Efficiency Standards. The study addressed a key challenge in building decarbonization: managing coincident peak electric demand during summer afternoons and winter mornings as the building stock transitions to all-electric HVAC. The research covered both thermal load reduction strategies (high-performance building envelopes) and peak thermal load management strategies (thermal energy storage technologies), with findings intended to feed directly into future Title 24 code cycles and a subsequent Phase 2 energy modeling analysis.

Our Role

A2 Efficiency served as Technical Lead for the project team. Our contributions included:

• Led the technical research, literature review, and data collection across thermal envelope, HVAC controls, and thermal energy storage (TES) strategies.

• Developed structured interview guides and conducted hour-long interviews with 21 subject matter experts across three categories: envelope designers and specialists, TES and controls technology specialists, and code and market stakeholders.

• Authored the Phase 1 project report documenting seven peak load reduction and management strategies, their regulatory landscape, modeling barriers, market adoption challenges, and data gaps.

• Developed specific code and standard enhancement recommendations for future Title 24 cycles, drawing on national model codes including ASHRAE 90.1, IECC, and state stretch codes.

Project Highlights

• Identified 7 leading strategies across two categories: 4 thermal load reduction approaches (thermal bridging accounting, envelope backstop, air tightness requirements, advanced envelope performance) and 3 TES load management technologies (ambient, primary, and small-scale packaged TES).

• Recommended implementing an envelope backstop for Title 24 performance compliance, a code mechanism already adopted in Massachusetts, Washington State, and Vancouver, to prevent low-performance envelopes being traded off against HVAC efficiency.