California wants swimming pools to be more energy efficient to boost grid reliability

As California moves away from gas-powered technology, state officials have looked for ways to ease stress on our electrical grid. A recent California Energy Commission decision tackles the systems powering swimming pools.

By September 2025, new pool equipment sold in California must include controls that adjust their energy usage to non-peak hours. The state energy commission says that once all pools transition to this equipment, the reduction in emissions will be equivalent to getting 85,000 gas-powered cars off the road.  

Andrew McAllister, lead commissioner for appliance standards, said that for Californians who own them, swimming pools are the single largest energy consumer in the residential sector. With that, they’re also the largest energy cost. 

“If we manage that demand … all those pools add up to significant resources to help the reliability of the grid,” McAllister said. 

Justin Wiley, vice president of government relations for the Pool & Hot Tub Alliance, said California is among the states with the most swimming pools in the country. 

“California has over 1.3 million in-ground pools that have already been installed and they are on pace to do … over 15,000 new pools each year,” Wiley said. 

He described the standard as “a positive step in helping save consumers money and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” 

The new standard is one step towards California’s goal to make up to 7,000 megawatts of electricity available through technologies that use energy more efficiently. For context, California ISO reports that a single megawatt is enough electricity for the demands of about 750 homes at once. 

McAllister said technologies that adapt energy usage to non-peak times also help ensure that the energy used is coming from a cleaner source.

“Not all carbon-free energy supply or renewable energy supply is intermittent, but much of it is,” McAllister said. “Solar and wind are inherently intermittent … so we don't have to operate our pools all the time, but we can operate them when it's cheap and convenient.” 

Right now, McAllister said there’s no federal standard for flexible-demand technologies, so California has a “wide open field to innovate.” He said the state will continue to adopt flexible demand technologies in other sectors as a way to boost the reliability of the state’s grid. 

“Clean electricity is the backbone of our zero carbon future,” McAllister said, “We're going to have new loads that historically weren't electric.” 

Wiley said California is the first state the Pool & Hot Tub Alliance has worked with on a standard like this one. 

“Although, we anticipate that there are going to be other states that will be looking to California to see how this process has worked, how well the implementation phase has gone,” Wiley said. “We do see this as, kind of, the blueprint, and … I think other states are looking to this as a blueprint as well.”