At the end of October 2016, the Santa Monica City Council voted to approve an ordinance requiring all new single-family construction in the City of Santa Monica to be zero-net-energy (ZNE). The ordinance has now gone to the California Energy Commission (CEC) for approval.
Santa Monica is adopting the ZNE definition used in the 2016 California Green Building Standards Code (CALGreen) which says that a ZNE building is one where the value of energy produced on-site by renewable energy resources is equal to the value of the energy consumed annually by the building.
In addition to ZNE for single family homes, the ordinance also requires non-residential construction be designed to use 10% less energy than required by the 2016 California Energy Code.
Click here for the press release from the City of Santa Monica.