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California Utility Allowance Calculator (CUAC)

Nikhil Kapur edited this page May 20, 2026 · 4 revisions

California Utility Allowance Calculator (CUAC)

The California Utility Allowance Calculator (CUAC) is California’s energy use model for calculating utility estimates. The tool provides an estimate of what tenants will pay for utilities and is typically more accurate than a public housing authority utility allowance schedule.

In partnership with the State Treasurer’s Office, the California Energy Commission (CEC) updates and maintains the CUAC. There are two versions. The MS Access CUAC is a stand-alone Microsoft Access (MS) program with a user interface allowing different inputs for new and existing projects. Since newly constructed homes are already required to demonstrate compliance with the Building Energy Efficiency Standards (Energy Code) using the compliance software (CBECC), the new CUAC is incorporated into CBECC. The CBECC-CUAC is intended to be a process improvement for affordable housing developers and are expected to eliminate manual importing of results from CBECC into the separate stand-alone MS-based tool. The CBECC-CUAC software brings the CUAC under the care of the more substantial development and user support team responsible for CBECC.

Related Links

California Energy Commission Website - CUAC

CUAC Program Information - Office of State Treasurer Website

Download

2025 CBECC-CUAC Latest Release

Resources

CBECC CUAC Demo Video

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