Solar Companies in Orange County: Who Installed the Most Systems in 2025

Installers who connected the most home solar systems in Orange County in 2025

Counts from utility records, not a ranking or endorsement. Check each license's status and complaint history on the CSLB's Check a License page (checked Sept. 24, 2026). The counts cover SCE and SDG&E customers across Orange County; customers of city-owned utilities are not in the data.

Source: California Distributed Generation Statistics (CPUC), Interconnected Project Sites data set, data through May 31, 2026 (checked Sept. 24, 2026).

Home solar in Orange County by the numbers

SCE and SDG&E approved 8,375 home solar systems in Orange County in 2025, from 504 installers; the top three were named on 35% of them. The busiest year since 2021 was 2023, with 19,853 (2025: -58%). Another 3,915 were approved from January through May 2026.

2025 mix: 40% leased or on a power purchase agreement, 60% owned by the household; 65% with a battery; median size 6.75 kW DC.

Who serves each Orange County city, and who issues the permit

The California Energy Commission's utility map shows three delivery utilities in the county. SCE covers most of it, SDG&E serves the southern end (SDG&E describes its territory as San Diego and southern Orange counties), and the City of Anaheim runs its own public utility. A few cities in the south straddle the SCE and SDG&E line, so the table marks them as split.

Generation is a second layer. Orange County Power Authority, the county's community choice aggregator, lists its current member cities as Buena Park, Fullerton and Irvine, with Fountain Valley beginning service soon. Huntington Beach was a member but left: OCPA says its customers there were returned to SCE in 2024.

Utility and generation rows come from the Energy Commission's map, queried September 23, 2026, and OCPA's own member list, which is newer than the map's community choice layer. The map can still shade Huntington Beach as OCPA; OCPA's page is the current word. For any split city, the bill is the only reliable answer for one address. Where a permit platform is named, it is the one the city reported to the Energy Commission under SB 379 (program data updated August 3, 2026, checked September 24, 2026).

For what each of these utilities charges today, see Orange County electric rates and bills by provider.

Hiring a solar company in Orange County

Orange County solar companies work across three delivery utilities: SCE for most of the county, SDG&E in the south and Anaheim Public Utilities in Anaheim. In Buena Park, Fullerton and Irvine, Orange County Power Authority supplies the generation; Huntington Beach left OCPA in 2024. Each city issues its own permit, and the County of Orange permits unincorporated areas. Compare at least three written bids built on your own bill.

Start with your Orange County electricity bill

In Orange County the bill decides more than the zip code does. SCE delivers power to most of the county, SDG&E to the south end, and the City of Anaheim to Anaheim. In Buena Park, Fullerton and Irvine, Orange County Power Authority supplies the generation on an SCE bill. Each of those four sets its own solar credit rules, so a quote has to start from the provider names printed on your own statement.

Three solar credit rulebooks in one county

On an SCE bill, a new system goes on SCE's Solar Billing Plan: exports earn Energy Export Credits that vary by hour and season, SCE locks the values for nine years from the year you start, and customers who enroll before 2028 get a bonus credit of about $0.04 per kWh, or about $0.09 if income-qualified. The settlement bill comes once a year, in the month the system started service.

In Buena Park, Fullerton and Irvine the generation half of that bill belongs to Orange County Power Authority. OCPA says SCE handles the delivery charges and credits while OCPA handles generation, reconciles generation charges monthly and holds its annual true-up in April, before summer, so that credits built up in sunny months can be used at the retail rate. It pays 10% more than SCE for surplus left at true-up.

In the SDG&E cities of the south county, the Solar Billing Plan runs on SDG&E's EV-TOU-5 time-of-use plan, with on-peak hours from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Export credits are priced by the hour, surplus credits roll forward month to month, and SDG&E says they cannot be applied to non-bypassable charges or the Base Services Charge. Anaheim Public Utilities, as a city utility, sets its own solar terms outside the CPUC's tariff.

How permits differ across the county

Government Code section 65850.52, the law passed as SB 379, told every California city and county to offer an online, automated permitting platform such as SolarAPP+ for residential solar up to 38.4 kW, and for batteries paired with it. Cities of more than 50,000 people had to comply by September 30, 2023, and smaller cities by September 30, 2024, unless a city has fewer than 5,000 people or sits in a county of fewer than 150,000. Orange County is far larger than that, so the county exemption does not apply to its cities. The law also lets a jurisdiction send a design the platform cannot process through its regular review.

The County of Orange launched SolarAPP+ for unincorporated homes on August 23, 2024, for roof-mounted systems on existing homes, submitted by registered licensed contractors. It also keeps the expedited path that AB 2188 required every city and county to adopt by September 30, 2015: an eligibility checklist, standard plans for central-inverter and microinverter systems, structural criteria and an online application. The city pages linked in the table above describe each city's own steps where this site has checked them, such as Huntington Beach's SolarAPP+ record in its HB ACA portal.

What an Orange County quote needs to explain

A comparison to ask for

Ask every Orange County bidder to put two things at the top of the proposal: the utility and generation provider from your bill, and the permit office for your address. A bid that assumes SCE and OCPA for a Mission Viejo or Laguna Niguel home that SDG&E actually serves, or that prices an Anaheim home at SCE's rates, is working from the wrong numbers before it gets to the roof.

Verify the company behind the Orange County quote

Match the business name and license number on each Orange County proposal to the CSLB record, then use our contractor verification steps, the quote comparison guide and the PPA, loan, lease and cash comparison.

Orange County solar quote questions