San Diego, California
With over 1.4 million residents, the City of San Diego is the second-largest city in California and the eighth-largest city in the United States. San Diego is home to several prestigious universities and research institutions, making it a center for the tech, biotech, and health industries. The city shares a border with Tijuana, Mexico, making it home to a vibrant binational community. In 2015, San Diego became one of the first cities in the country to set a goal to achieve zero carbon electricity. The City updated its Climate Action Plan (CAP) in 2022 to include a goal of achieving net-zero emissions citywide and phasing out 90% of natural gas use in existing buildings by 2035. The City also developed a Climate Equity Index to ensure that the transition to clean energy benefits all, including low- and middle-income communities.
San Diego Programs, Policies, and Strategies
To make progress on decarbonizing its building stock, the City initiated work to decarbonize municipal facilities, develop a building decarbonization roadmap, and create new policies to encourage electrification. BEI began working with San Diego in 2021 to support engagement with labor partners and residents on its building decarbonization strategy, recognizing the critical role that San Diego’s high-skilled workforce plays in this transition and the impact that climate change and energy costs have on worker communities. BEI partnered with the City to complete a Jobs Impact Analysis for several near-term building decarbonization policies and assess the potential longer-term workforce impacts of a wide-scale transition.
Like many California cities, San Diego faces significant housing affordability challenges, with high housing costs impacting working families and creating additional barriers to accessing energy efficient and healthy housing. BEI worked with the City from 2022 to 2023 to develop a Building and Housing Stock Analysis to identify all buildings in the city, assess the opportunities for building decarbonization, and discuss options for promoting housing affordability. BEI helped to shape the City’s Home Electrification Affordability Rebates and Technical Assistance (HEART) Program, which launched in 2025 to help low-income households replace gas appliances with electric ones at little to no cost, with a focus on flood-impacted communities. BEI coordinated with the City on program components related to affordability and opportunities to connect the program with existing housing repair efforts.
Regional Programs, Policies, and Strategies
Building on our work with the City, BEI also engages with regional partners to support climate action across San Diego County. To help the County meet its climate goals, BEI is providing foundational research, policy design, and stakeholder engagement support to help develop benchmarking and building performance standard policies.
The City and County of San Diego have worked closely with regional partners over the last decade to launch San Diego Community Power, a community choice aggregator (CCA) that provides cost-competitive, 100% renewable electricity to the region. In 2023, BEI initiated a partnership with San Diego Community Power to complete a region-wide Building and Housing Stock Analysis for all jurisdictions in their service territory, as well as a funding analysis that assesses the costs of electrifying residential buildings and gaps for homes after using both existing and upcoming incentives. San Diego Community Power used these analyses to inform their program priorities for the San Diego Regional Energy Network (SDREN), which will provide Retrofit Navigator programs to help meet regional energy and climate goals while advancing community priorities for housing affordability, health, and good quality jobs. BEI is now helping SDREN build out their upcoming codes and standards program, which will provide customized support to local governments and stakeholders to support the region’s contribution to state and local climate goals.
Throughout 2026, BEI will continue to work with the City, County, and San Diego Community Power to help the region achieve climate targets and move forward with an equitable transition toward fossil fuel-free buildings.