Electrification, EV advocates suffer defeat in 2024 building code update

The three-year process to update building codes that serve as a template for US cities and states ended contentiously after an influential body made an 11th-hour decision to reject minimum requirements for electric appliances, rooftop solar and electric vehicle charging.

The 2024 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) was on pace to include those electrification provisions after they received enough support during a multiyear process. But on March 20, the board of directors of the International Code Council (ICC) ruled that the provisions do not belong in the core body of the IECC, known as the base code.

The board said the 2024 IECC is limited to minimum requirements that produce "the maximum level of energy efficiency" in buildings. Siding with several industry groups, the board determined that the electrification provisions "may reduce greenhouse gas emissions" but do not have "direct impacts to building energy conservation."

Consequently, the board moved the provisions from the base code into a voluntary appendix. Updating to the latest base code is optional, and many local and state building codes are still based on past versions of the IECC.

Moving the electrification provisions to a voluntary index will likely reduce their implementation because cities and states must take an additional step to adopt them on top of the base code.

In another blow to climate and efficiency advocates, the ICC board effectively sidelined a separate draft voluntary appendix that provides a template for cities to require all-electric construction. The board said it would warn cities that the policy could put them at legal risk.

In cities that choose to adopt them on top of the 2024 IECC, the electrification provisions require builders to make accommodations for electric appliances, making it easier for households to choose electric heaters and cooktops over gas equipment.

The provisions reserve rooftop space and electric paneling for on-site solar power. They outline requirements for EV charging stations and battery storage systems. Finally, they direct builders to install demand response controls, which allow households to participate in utility programs that adjust system settings during high-demand periods.

The ICC board's final base code did, however, allow a minimum requirement for commercial buildings to have on-site renewable energy or purchase it from an off-site provider.

Some progressive cities and states have already bundled similar policies in recent building code updates. According to proponents, the combination of strategies delivers high efficiency and low emissions and prepares buildings to integrate with smart grids of the future fed by zero-carbon generation.

Another setback for building electrification

The ICC board decision marked the latest setback for the building electrification movement, chief among them a US Appeals Court opinion that upended dozens of West Coast policies to restrict natural gas use and promote electrification in new construction.

The industries that have pushed back on those policies for years — gas distributors, appliance manufacturers and building developers and managers — also challenged the electrification provisions in the 2024 IECC process.

"The ICC board of directors made the right decision for the United States to be more energy efficient in removing these deeply problematic provisions from the code base," American Gas Association President and CEO Karen Harbert said in a March 20 news release.

The US would conserve less energy if the 2024 IECC included provisions that made cities less likely to adopt it or placed them at legal risk, according to Stephen Yurek, president and CEO of the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI).

The board's decision makes the code "more adoptable" and therefore more likely to achieve its goal of increasing energy efficiency by 6.5% in residential buildings and 10% in commercial buildings, he said in a March 21 statement.

Climate and efficiency advocates said the outcome called into question the ICC's legitimacy.

"The [ICC] bent over backward to accommodate a few powerful industries," Michael Waite, director of codes and building standards at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), said in a March 21 statement. "Not only can we not take the [ICC] seriously as a partner in achieving the level of building energy performance we need, but it also cannot even be considered an honest administrator of its own processes."

The groups said the ICC allowed the stakeholders to labor under the understanding that the electrification provisions were within scope, only to have their work thrown out of the base code at the last minute.

Another year, another dispute

This was the second consecutive code cycle that ended in a dispute between the ICC and efficiency and climate advocates.

The groups pilloried the ICC after it overhauled code development following the 2021 IECC cycle. The ICC pivoted from a process in which only government officials voted on the final code to one steered by committees of government, industry and nonprofit stakeholders. ICC made the change after progressive cities and states turned out in large numbers to secure stringent efficiency requirements.

The ICC board also rejected electric-ready and EV provisions in the 2021 IECC draft, but proponents still pursued a broader range of electrification policies during the 2024 cycle. They drew confidence from a February 2022 ICC staff memo that said the electrification provisions were within the scope and intent of the 2024 IECC, meaning they could appear in the base code as minimum requirements.

But as the code development process neared completion, the industry groups filed overlapping appeals. Among their challenges, they said ICC staff had misread the IECC 2024's scope and intent, which the groups interpreted as relegating greenhouse gas-reducing provisions to voluntary appendices.

The groups included the AGA, American Public Gas Association, Building Owners and Managers Association International, National Multifamily Housing Council and AHRI. ICC Region VI covering seven Northeast states also appealed.

AHRI also challenged the voluntary all-electric appendices. The group noted that the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had ruled that the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) preempted Berkeley, Calif.'s pioneering gas ban, placing similar policies in legal peril.

Several dozen stakeholders opposed the appeals, including the US Department of Energy, the Edison Electric Institute, New York State, Tesla Inc. and various renewable energy and EV advocates.

The appeals board agreed with the February 2022 memo's reading of scope and intent and recommended that the board of directors deny the industry groups' appeals. But just weeks later, the board ruled very differently.

Questions remain

The ICC board of directors' March 20 decision — which stuck to issues of scope and intent and EPCA preemption — left critical questions unanswered.

Stakeholders were uncertain if the board's view that the electrification provisions do not belong in the base code would apply to future IECC updates. The ICC did not provide an answer to S&P Global Commodity Insights.

AGA said it expected the decision to carry into future code updates but noted that the ICC determines scope at the start of each three-year update. The ICC told ACEEE that the board would issue a report on the reasoning behind its decision at a later date, Waite told Commodity Insights.

The ICC board's decision to move the all-electric appendices to a "resource" and attach a "cautionary note" about the risk of EPCA preemption also caused some confusion. Several stakeholders said they were unfamiliar with the concept of a "resource." The ICC did not return a request for clarification before this story was published.

Crisis of confidence

It remained to be seen whether the uproar over the 2024 IECC process would lead to process changes for future code updates. Some climate and efficiency advocates said the last two IECC cycles had shaken their confidence in the process.

The outcomes in 2021 and 2024 have created "a serious credibility issue" for the ICC and an imperative for the organization to rethink the code development process, according to Amy Boyce, senior director for building and energy performance at the Institute for Market Transformation.

"The IECC relies on volunteers for its creation, and the board just told half of them that their contributions don't matter, even though they came back after the process was upended," she said in a March 22 blog post.

The ICC appeals board recommended that the board of directors "work with staff to clarify the scope and intent of the IECC codes" ahead of the 2027 update.

Given that recommendation and stakeholder concerns, Commodity Insights asked the ICC if it would review how it establishes a shared understanding of the IECC scope and intent among staff, the appeals board and the board of directors at the start of the code cycle. The ICC did not respond prior to publication.