We got the call last Tuesday from a national QSR franchisee with eleven locations under construction in the Central Valley. Their architect had submitted plans in late December showing gas ranges, gas fryers, gas griddles—standard stuff. The plan checker kicked every set back with the same note: "Electric-ready infrastructure required per Title 24, Part 6. Resubmit with electrical rough-in for all cooking equipment."
The franchisee was furious. "We signed a gas lease. We bought gas equipment. Why are we paying to wire for electric?"
Because starting January 1, 2026, commercial kitchens in California must include electric-ready infrastructure even if the project installs gas cooking appliances. The requirement lives in Title 24, Part 6—the 2025 Energy Code—and it applies to every permit application submitted on or after January 1. If your plans show a commercial kitchen, the electrical engineer can't punt until later. Panel capacity, conduit, circuit rough-in, and load calcs must be designed, drawn, and permitted before you break ground.
What "Electric-Ready" Actually Means
Electric-ready doesn't mean you have to cook with electricity. It means the building must be able to support electric cooking equipment without tearing open walls or upsizing the service later. That triggers a cascade of design decisions that used to happen—if they happened at all—during a future remodel.
The change adds cost and complexity for roof-space planning, load calculations, backup systems, and design coordination between disciplines. Electrical engineers now need the kitchen-equipment schedule during schematic design, not after the GC has already priced the job. Panel sizing can't be a guess; it has to assume full electric load even if the tenant never flips the breaker. And because Title 24 touches multiple code sections—Part 2 (the California Building Code), Part 6 (Energy), and Part 11 (CALGreen)—the electrical scope of work expands on virtually every commercial project, not just restaurants.
For a typical 2,500-square-foot fast-casual buildout, that might mean an extra 200-amp panel, four additional circuits rough-in, conduit stubbed to each cooking-equipment location, and coordination with the utility to confirm service availability. If the site is fed by a shared transformer or an older underground service, upgrading capacity can add weeks to the schedule and thousands to the budget.
Why California Did This
The rule supports California's net-zero emissions goal by 2045. The state's logic: if a building is going to last fifty years, better to wire it correctly now than retrofit it in 2035 when gas hookups are banned outright. Title 24 has been marching toward electrification for a decade—first it was residential, then it was new commercial construction, now it's tenant improvements and adaptive reuse. Electric-ready kitchens are the next domino.
From a permitting perspective, the change is invisible to projects that were already going all-electric. But for restaurant operators and franchisees who prefer gas cooking—because of speed, because of equipment costs, because their brand standards require flame—it's a new line item that didn't exist six months ago.
What It Costs and Who Pays
Restaurant operators signing new leases today are paying for electrical infrastructure they won't flip on for years—if ever. The delta between gas rough-in and electric-ready scope depends on the size of the kitchen and the existing service, but we've seen change orders range from $8,000 on a small coffee shop to $35,000 on a full-service restaurant with a hood system and multiple cooking lines.
The cost shows up in three places:
- Design fees. Electrical engineers can't be brought in after the architect finishes; load calcs, panel sizing, and utility coordination must happen during schematic design. That means the MEP budget starts earlier and runs longer.
- Construction cost. Conduit, wire, panels, and breakers for equipment that may never be installed. The GC prices it, the landlord's work-letter may or may not cover it, and the tenant eats the gap.
- Permit timeline. If the electrical plans don't match the kitchen-equipment schedule, the plan checker kicks the set back. Re-submittals cost time, and time costs money when you're paying rent on an empty box.
GCs writing lease-contingency clauses should budget the delta up front and clarify who owns the electric-ready scope—tenant, landlord, or split. The AHJ won't issue a permit without it, so surprises at permit review are expensive.
How We're Handling It
At Archipartners Design, we've been baking electric-ready coordination into every tenant improvement package since the code language went final last spring. Our standard schematic-phase checklist now includes:
- Kitchen-equipment schedule (with electric and gas options) delivered by end of SD.
- Preliminary electrical load calc assuming full electric operation.
- Utility coordination letter requesting service capacity confirmation.
- Panel location and rough-in routing on the architectural plan—not left to the electrical as an afterthought.
For restaurant clients working in California, we also run a parallel cost estimate showing gas-only vs. electric-ready scope so the franchise development team can model the financial impact before signing a lease. Most of the time, the landlord's TI allowance doesn't stretch to cover the electrical upgrade, which means the tenant needs to know the number before the LOI is executed.
If you're a multi-unit operator planning restaurant conversions or prototypes in California and your architect hasn't mentioned electric-ready infrastructure, call them this week. January 1 isn't a grace period; it's a hard cutoff, and every jurisdiction from San Diego to Redding is enforcing it. We've helped clients in Los Angeles, Orange County, the Inland Empire, and the Central Valley navigate the new requirements without blowing up their budgets—but only because we started the conversation during site selection, not after the lease was signed.
Questions about how Title 24 affects your next project? Reach out—we'll walk through the load calc and cost impact on your first call.