For 2025, the CEC has added a new compliance metric, the Peak Cooling score that expresses peak cooling consumption of the home in kWh. This metric only applies to New Construction homes, and not to additions and alterations. Projects in Climate Zones 4 and 8-15 are subject to this new metric.
What does it include? All electricity consumption of the home during the Peak Summer hour.
What can I do to reduce my score? Window SHGC and U-Factor improvements, Insulation, Duct Insulation and Location, AC efficiency, and using a Whole House Fan will all lower this number.
What will not affect the score? Batteries, PV, Lighting, Receptacle will have no impact.
Is this a bug in EnergyPro? No, the CBECC software applies the same restrictions.
As an important note, our own projects are struggling with this score, and we in fact have projects that WILL NOT comply that are perfectly reasonable projects. The CEC has been altered to this problem, and we expect some movement in this regard from them as we ramp up for the new code. In the meantime, we recommend you contact the Hotline on specific projects you have that are struggling. The contact e-mail is: Title24@energy.ca.gov
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