What is Title 24, Part 6?

California has been a leader in this area, first adopting "The Building Energy Efficiency Standards for Residential and Non-residential Buildings" in 1976 to reduce its aggregate energy consumption. These standards have since evolved into Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations, also known as the California Building Standards Code, or "Title 24".

Title 24 lays out regulations that govern the construction and redevelopment of residential and non-residential buildings in California. The Standards contain energy and water efficiency requirements for newly constructed buildings, additions to existing buildings, and alterations to existing buildings.

Parts 6 and 11 of Title 24, the California Energy Code, and the California Green Building Standards Code (CALGreen), address the need for regulations to improve energy efficiency and combat climate change. Other portions of Title 24 include building code, electrical code, fire code, and more. Title 24 standards are set by the California Energy Commission (CEC) — the agency responsible for state energy policy and planning — and are updated roughly every three years.

The most significant efficiency improvements to the Standards came in 2019 and included alignment with the ASHRAE 90.1 2017 national standard. ASHRAE 90.1 has been a benchmark for building energy codes in the United States and a fundamental basis for codes and standards worldwide for more than 35 years. ASHRAE 90.1 is also an industry-standard, referenced by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) in the LEED building certification program and frequently used as a baseline for comparison during energy retrofit projects.

In 2016, Title 24, Part 6 introduced the concept of measurement and verification (M & V) to track and analyze code compliance efforts. Section 130.5(a) & (b) of Part 6, have service metering requirements that include user-accessible metering of total electrical use from the whole building down to branch circuit monitoring, commonly referred to as "disaggregation of loads".