Vice Mayor Agran Secures Unanimous Council Support for Exploring an Expanded Solar Rooftop Program

During the October 22nd City Council meeting, Vice Mayor Larry Agran — who will be sworn-in as Irvine next’s Mayor on December 10th — secured unanimous support from his Council colleagues to have City staff begin looking into the idea of a “dramatically scaled-up” City program for rooftop solar installation in Irvine.

Agran asked the Council to “tee things up for when the new and expanded City Council is in place” after the Nov. 5th election.

The director of the City’s Public Works & Sustainability Department, Sean Crumby, reported that two City programs, Solarize Irvine and One Irvine, have helped homeowners with the installations of 245 rooftop solar systems and 44 solar battery storage systems since 2022.

Solarize Irvine provides information and technical assistance to homeowners and has assembled a vetted list of approved vendors, and has negotiated group buying discounts with those vendors. One Irvine, which targets homes built before 1975 for maintenance and upgrades, offers $1,500 rebates and no-interest loans up to $25,000 for solar installations.

Irvine resident Mike Belfield told the Council that he worked with Solarize Irvine to have a system installed at his home in September 2023. He said his electric bill now averages about $12 per month  and he has a $160 credit with Southern California Edison because of solar credits he received for installing the rooftop system. He added that the system will pay for itself in four to six years and that in the past year it has saved 8.6 tons of carbon from entering the atmosphere.

“Solarize Irvine is a success,” Belfield said. “Solar is by far one of the best investments we have made, not just for ourselves but for the planet.”

UCI physics professor Kev Abazajian — who serves as vice chair of the City’s Sustainability Commission — told the Council that there is potential to save Irvine residents up to $10 billion through rooftop solar.

“It’s an astronomical number but it’s a true number,” Abazajian said. “The average home solar and storage system in its lifetime [25 years] can save each homeowner $100,000. Seeing how we have about 100,000 homes in the City of Irvine, most without solar, that gives you a $10 billion return.”

“It can be done with the programs we’re talking about here,” he added. “There’s a potential to make a really positive green impact for residents while at the same time transferring $10 billion of wealth into their pockets. If we could get even 10% of that, that’s a tremendous impact.”

Said Agran of the City’s efforts: “The numbers so far are still pretty small. The question in my mind is, ‘How do we scale up in a big, big way?’ I think it requires some serious thought and attention by our staff about moving to a dramatically scaled-up program.”

The Council voted 5-0 for a motion by Agran to have the City staff study a possible expansion of its rooftop solar efforts, working with the Sustainability Commission and the Finance Commission and including residential, commercial and City facilities. Staff was directed to report back when the new City Council is seated following the November election.