The Explorer was originally built to support California cities and counties in designing policies to reduce building-sector energy consumption and emissions. However, we’ve consistently heard that other entities—such as CCAs, RENs, utilities, COGs, AQMDs/APCDs, and statewide agencies—also find value in the Explorer’s data and tools. In response, we’ve introduced a path to view data aggregated for these types of entities, as well as for entire counties and climate zones.
Looking ahead, we aim to expand the Explorer to better support the program and policy planning needs of regional entities. If you work with one of these groups, we welcome your feedback and ideas on how the Explorer can better serve your efforts.
These entities can now:
View a breakdown of cities and counties that make up their territory or service area—including residential and nonresidential building stock and associated climate zones. (After selecting an entity, click the small “i” icon beside the entity name to view details.)
Explore building stock data in our Building Estimates section to better understand building characteristics across member jurisdictions.
View Cost-Effectiveness Study results for their climate zones for building efficiency measures assessed in statewide cost-effectiveness studies via the 'Study Results' section.
View impact projections scaled to their service area's building stock and climate zone for each study measure shown in 'Study Results'.
Customize modeling assumptions–like penetration rate and renewable electricity percentage– to fine tune these impact projections.
What about the Policy Design section?
At present, the Policy Design section remains available only when a city or county is selected. Adapting it for a broader set of entities was beyond scope for this release. That said, we believe aspects of this feature may still be useful for regional entities—particularly for users comfortable translating city/county-specific concepts. If you’d like to use Policy Design for all entity types, send us a message, and we can enable experimental access.
Looking ahead, we hope to adapt the Policy Design section and develop additional capabilities to support the program and policy planning needs across a wider range of entities. If you work with one of these groups, share your thoughts with us, we welcome your feedback and ideas on how we can better serve your efforts.