🔌 California Is Going All-Electric. But Can the Grid Keep Up?
In recent years, California has led the nation with sweeping mandates to decarbonize the built environment. From Title 24 updates to statewide gas bans on new construction, the Golden State is aggressively pushing toward 100% building electrification.
Highlights include:
- 🔥 No new gas hookups in dozens of cities and counties (e.g., San Francisco, Berkeley, Santa Monica)
- 🏢 Title 24 (2022) mandates electrified heat pump water heaters in most new builds
- 💡 SB 100 & AB 3232 aim to achieve 100% clean electricity and reduce building emissions by 40% by 2030
This all sounds great—until you realize the underlying issue:
⚠️ California Doesn’t Generate Enough Power
California is already facing:
- Rolling blackouts during summer heat waves
- Tight peak demand windows in early evening
- Grid instability from solar oversupply and load imbalance
- Delayed infrastructure for new electric homes and buildings
Add to this millions of new electric water heaters, HVAC systems, and EV chargers—and the pressure on the grid becomes immense.
🚿 The Hidden Culprit? Hot Water
Most people don’t realize this, but domestic hot water accounts for about 20% of residential energy use in California.
That’s billions of kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year.
Now imagine this:
If we could cut that energy demand in half, using intelligent thermal battery storage instead of on-demand electric heating, how much energy could we save?
🔬 The Solthera Impact: Measurable, Scalable Savings
Let’s run the numbers:
- Average home uses 6,500 kWh/year
- ~20% of that is for hot water → 1,300 kWh/year
- Solthera reduces that by 50% → saves 650 kWh/year
- California has ~13 million homes
✅ Total energy savings = 8,450 GWh/year
That’s equivalent to:
- Taking over 1 million homes off the grid
- Avoiding the need for billions in grid upgrades
- Meeting a third of California’s residential decarbonization targets with one system
🔋 Solthera: Built for the California Codebook
Solthera’s thermal battery uses phase change materials (PCMs) to absorb, store, and release thermal energy for:
- Domestic hot water
- Radiant heating
- Load shifting & demand management
Key California Benefits:
- ✅ Compliant with Title 24 for water heating & envelope efficiency
- ✅ Helps qualify for IRA energy storage tax credits
- ✅ Reduces peak load contribution
- ✅ Qualifies for net-zero and all-electric building incentives
- ✅ Works with heat pumps, solar thermal, or grid power sources
🏗️ Ideal for California Projects Like:
- All-electric subdivisions
- Net-zero multifamily developments
- Electrified ADUs and backyard homes
- Passive House and LEED Platinum builds
- Public school decarbonization and microgrids
🌍 Electrify Intelligently—or Overwhelm the Grid
California’s commitment to electrification is admirable—but without thermal energy storage, the system buckles under pressure.
Solthera offers a smarter path:
- Store energy when it's cheap or abundant
- Deliver it when demand is high
- Avoid unnecessary spikes in electric load
- Unlock deeper integration of solar + heat pumps
🔗 Ready to Align with California’s All-Electric Future?
Solthera is helping builders, architects, and sustainability consultants stay ahead of the code curve while cutting real emissions and solving real grid problems.
