The city of San Francisco has not been shy to use its building codes to try to accelerate the deployment of sustainable energy. Last year, it required new buildings to have solar panels installed on the roof and this year, it will try to accommodate electric vehicles by using a similar approach.

San Francisco already has one of the highest concentration of electric vehicles in the world and that comes with a more than decent public charging station coverage.

Now they want to make sure people can also have a charger at home more easily, which is why Mayor Edwin M. Lee and Supervisor Katy Tang introduced new legislation to require that all new buildings are ‘100% electric vehicle ready’.

Mayor Lee said about the announcement on Tuesday:

“San Francisco is working towards smart, long-term investments and policies that reduce pollution and make sense economically. We are committed to continuing our leadership on fighting climate change. By improving access to electric charging citywide, San Francisco is accelerating our transition to a clean-energy transportation future.”

They want to require all new parking construction to accommodate EVs with at least 10% of the space and the rest to be “ready” to have chargers installed:

“This 100 percent EV Ready ordinance requires all new residential and commercial buildings to configure 10 percent of parking spaces to be “turnkey ready” for EV charger installation, and an additional 10 percent to be “EV flexible” for potential charging and upgrades. The remaining 80 percent of parking spaces will be “EV capable,” by ensuring conduit is run in the hardest to reach areas of a parking garage to avoid future cost barriers.”

The city expects that this approach will reduce the cost of installing an electric vehicle charger by as much as 75% versus a building/parking that wasn’t designed to be “EV ready”.

It’s a more aggressive approach than the state’s. California building codes now require 3 percent of parking spaces to be designed to serve electric vehicles.

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