CEC Confirms Three JA18-Certified Libraries on Record, Says It's Too Early for Compliance Trends

The California Energy Commission has three JA18-certified control libraries on record three months into the 2025 Title 24 code cycle, according to written responses CEC staff provided to ServiceMag last week. The agency says it does not yet have enough data to characterize compliance trends, and reports that no field issues or recurring challenges have been formally documented so far.

The numbers come on the heels of our earlier coverage of Carrier's December 19, 2025 i-Vu library submittal — a filing that was widely read in the controls trade as the opening move in a race to lock in CEC-approved sequence libraries before competitors. CEC declined to confirm or deny which manufacturers are among the three currently certified.

A Vocabulary Mismatch Worth Flagging

CEC staff opened their response with a definitional caveat: the agency's understanding of "pre-certified libraries" may not match how the term gets thrown around in the field. If the question is about libraries that align with the sequences of operation in ASHRAE Guideline 36 — which is how most controls integrators use the phrase — three are on the books. That's the count to use when comparing notes with a manufacturer.

Beyond that, the agency is keeping its predictions to itself. Both certified libraries and custom sequences remain allowable compliance paths, and CEC declined to forecast which approach will end up dominating California controls work.

The Contractor-vs-Manufacturer Split

The cleanest takeaway from the CEC response is one that's been muddied in trade-press coverage: JA18 requirements apply to manufacturers, not contractors. A contractor's job is narrower — install a JA18-certified control library, then complete the compliance form using a library version that appears in CEC's certified directory. The documentation burden of proving a library actually meets JA18 sits with the manufacturer that submits it.

That distinction has practical consequences when scoping a Title 24 commercial job. If your specified controls vendor doesn't have a certified library on file, you don't get to invent one in the field. You either pick a vendor that does, or you write a custom sequence and submit it for peer review.

Mateo Vasquez, who runs Long Beach Air Conditioning & Heating Repairs on Atlantic Avenue, said the manufacturer-side framing changes the conversation he's been having with general contractors on commercial bids.

"I've had GCs come to me last quarter asking if my guys are 'JA18 certified.' That's not a thing — there's no contractor stamp," Vasquez said. "What they actually want to know is whether I'm specifying a controls package that's already on the CEC list, because that's what gets the project closed out clean. Once you frame it that way, the vendor selection conversation happens at design, not at startup."

No Standard Timeframe, and the Practical Read

Asked how long it takes CEC to review a manufacturer-submitted library after it lands on the agency's desk, staff effectively said: it depends. Submittals vary by system architecture and by the completeness of the evidence package a manufacturer provides. A clean filing with airtight documentation can move through; a thin or sloppy one can sit through multiple rounds of clarification.

For a contractor watching the certified list to fill out, the absence of a published timeline is its own kind of signal. Vasquez put it bluntly: "Nobody's going to spec a vendor whose library is 'in review.' If you're a manufacturer and you're not certified by the time the design engineer is locking in equipment, you're already out of the running on that job. The lag matters more than the rule."

"No Documented Issues" Is Not "No Issues"

CEC also told us it has not received documented issues or recurring challenges related to JA18 compliance three months in. That's worth taking with calibrated weight: the absence of complaints to a regulator isn't the same as the absence of problems in the field. The kind of fights that produce written complaints to CEC tend to surface during punch-list and final inspection — not during early submittals.

Vasquez agrees the quiet stretch is partly an artifact of where most jobs sit in the cycle. "Most of the projects starting up in Q1 were already designed before JA18 went live. The real test is the new builds that hit the design phase this year and start commissioning in late 2026 and 2027. Until those punch out, you're not going to see the friction points show up on anybody's desk."

We'll keep watching the docket as more libraries land and the first round of JA18 commissioning reports comes through. For related coverage, see our pieces on Carrier's commercial vs. residential split in Q4 2025 and the 2026 EPA refrigerant transition.

The responses from the California Energy Commission used in this article were provided in writing by the agency's Media and Public Communications office on April 27, 2026, and credited collectively to "CEC staff."