Last month saw the City Council of Fremont, California voted to approve a new housing development mandate that requires the installation of solar panels and wiring for electric vehicle stations.
The mandate requires that panels and charging stations be installed for both single-family and multi-family housing units. The size of the systems built in the city will be determined by the size of the homes they occupy on a sliding scale running up to 4450 ft.². The homes which are 4500 ft.² or larger will be calculated differently, though they will still be subject to the mandate.
The mandate could be a significant boost to the success of Tesla solar division and perhaps also its line of premium Solar Roof products. After all, Fremont is Tesla’s hometown, though evidently, the mandate does not require that builders use Tesla products.
Regarding the wiring for electric vehicle charging stations, the mandate specifies that new commercial and residential developments have parking spaces that are EV ready. The spaces themselves will have to be pre-wired to be compatible with future installations of EVSEs.
According to the East eight times, a two car garage found in a single family home would typically need a large specialized outlet and dedicated circuit so that a resident could plug in their electric vehicle charger. Meanwhile, for most new multifamily and commercial projects, Fremont will require that 10% of the parking spaces come with a charging station already installed.
Fremont’s goal is to push for electric car option, while also driving down the electricity used that come from the grid.
