B4.10 EV-ready residential building code (See T3.5 EV-ready building code)
Modify the residential building code to require builders of new single-family and multi-family housing units to install wiring, boxes, and other infrastructure to charge plug-in electric vehicles.
The availability of EV-charging infrastructure is important as the transition toward an all-electric fleet gains momentum. Widespread and easily accessible charging helps to ease range anxiety that may otherwise discourage EV ownership. American’s spend on average 90 percent of their time indoors, which means that it is advantageous for buildings to come equipped with EV-charging equipment. Updating building codes to require EV-readiness is more cost effective than later retrofits, and will become necessary as mandates across the country require 100 percent of vehicles to be electric.
RCW 19.27.540 requires the State Building Code Council to develop rules by July 2021 requiring wiring or suitable conduit for 240V charging for the greater of one parking space or 10% of the parking spaces at all new buildings that provide on-site parking. The electrical rooms have to be sized to provide charging for a minimum of 20% of the spaces. (In “mercantile, educational, and assembly” buildings, the requirements only apply to the parking for employees.) In addition, buildings classified as R-3 (which includes duplexes, triplexes, multi-family, and neighborhood businesses), utility, and miscellaneous were exempted. HB1287 removes the exemption for R-3 buildings. It also requires creating a tool for forecasting and mapping EV charging infrastructure needs; addressing those in utilities’ integrated resource planning, and directs the Building Code Council to provide for those needs in future code updates.
The City of Seattle adopted an EV-ready construction ordinance that went into effect on June 7, 2019. The ordinance requires residential buildings to have at least 20 percent of parking spaces be EV-ready (with tiered requirements for various numbers of surface parking spots). Non-residential buildings are required to make at least 10 percent of parking spaces EV-ready. King County requires new or substantially remodeled apartment buildings to install chargers for 10% of the parking spaces and the infrastructure for future charging in an additional 25% of the spaces. (See T3.1 for the details.)
Since 2017, Oregon has required new construction projects in the cities of Portland, Eugene, Salem, and Gresham with parking facilities of 50 parking spaces or more to make at least “five percent of the open parking spaces available for future installation of electric vehicle charging stations.” The program applies to most classifications of business buildings and low-density multifamily residential.
ICC nearly approved in the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) provisions for EV-ready construction in residential buildings. The new provisions would have required that new homes are wired to facilitate EV charging infrastructure and as many as 20 percent of parking spaces in multifamily buildings are capable of EV charging. The ICC is a voluntary model code, but it is utilized as a base code by many municipalities.
British Columbia’s Building Act sets building standards and establishes the Provincial Government as the sole authority to set building requirements. In 2016, EV infrastructure was considered “out of scope” of the Building Act, effectively giving greater authority to local jurisdictions to set EV-ready requirements. In 2019, the City of Vancouver began requiring all multi-family parking spaces to be equipped with an outlet capable of handling EV-charging equipment. The first residential requirements for EV-readiness in Vancouver came into force in 2011, with an update in 2013. A study showed that between 2014 and 2016, compliance with the bylaw was 50 percent higher than required, with 192 multi-family buildings and 2,198 single-family homes installing charging equipment. Additional bylaws require commercial buildings to have at least 10 percent of stalls equipped with Level 2 chargers. Beyond Vancouver, over 13 municipalities in British Columbia have enacted bylaws that require EV-ready construction in residential and commercial buildings, or give parking incentives to EVs.
The Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP) maintains a list of municipalities with EV-ready code requirements, as well as detailed resources on the benefits and how to implement EV-ready code. (It’s missing Chicago; Berkeley and San José; and Ann Arbor, at least.)