Energy Office board approves EV-ready exception and electric-ready circuit language; tables air-barrier inspection sequencing

The Energy Office’s Low Energy and Carbon Code board on Thursday approved changes to commercial electric‑readiness rules and a new exception to the EV-ready requirements for large parking lots, and tabled a proposed change about the timing of third‑party air‑barrier verification so staff and proposers can combine competing wording.

Board members voted to add an exception to the commercial EV-ready requirements that allows design teams to terminate conduit runs at a future transformer or panel location rather than running all conduits back to the existing service. The board’s rationale: the change gives designers flexibility on very large parking fields where meeting conduit‑routing and service‑sizing criteria can be impractical. The straw poll on the proposed edits to C4.10.5 returned unanimous support in the meeting’s roll call (18 yes, 0 no, 0 abstain) and the proposal passed.

The board also amended the electric‑ready language covering future electric cooking and clothes‑drying equipment. After discussion about whether the code should require designers to calculate “heating load” for appliances, members agreed to replace that term with “equipment load,” add a cross‑reference to the National Electrical Code (NEC) for…