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

Installers who connected the most home solar systems in Riverside 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 customers across Riverside 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 Riverside County by the numbers

SCE approved 15,138 home solar systems in Riverside County in 2025, from 431 installers; the top three were named on 45% of them. The busiest year since 2021 was 2023, with 27,133 (2025: -44%). Another 6,224 were approved from January through May 2026.

2025 mix: 57% leased or on a power purchase agreement, 43% owned by the household; 75% with a battery; median size 6.48 kW DC.

Utilities and permit activity across Riverside County

On the California Energy Commission's utility map, SCE covers about 72% of the county's area and the Imperial Irrigation District most of the rest. Inside that, several cities run their own utilities: the City of Riverside covers about 99.5% of its own city area, Banning all of its city, and Moreno Valley Utility and the City of Corona's utility serve parts of their cities alongside SCE. The Commission's community choice layer shows San Jacinto Power over San Jacinto, Desert Community Energy over most of Palm Springs and the Rancho Mirage Energy Authority over most of Rancho Mirage.

The permit column is each city's own report to the Energy Commission under SB 379: residential solar permits issued, the share with battery storage, and the share issued online, for 2024 unless another year is named.

Utility and community choice rows come from the Energy Commission's map, queried September 23, 2026; the shares are of city land area, not of homes. Permit counts are the cities' own SB 379 reports in the Commission's data file dated May 2026; cities with no report are shown without figures. Where a platform is named, it is the one the city reported to the Commission (program data updated August 3, 2026, checked September 24, 2026).

For what each of these utilities charges today, see Inland Empire electric rates and bills by utility.

Hiring a solar company in Riverside County

Solar companies in Riverside County have to design for whichever utility serves the address: SCE across most of the county, but city-owned utilities in Riverside, Banning and parts of Moreno Valley and Corona, IID in the eastern Coachella Valley, and community choice providers in San Jacinto, Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage. Each city issues its own permit, the County permits unincorporated areas, and manufactured homes need a state HCD permit. Compare at least three written bids built on your own bill.

Start with your Riverside County electricity bill

Riverside County has more electric utilities than most California counties. SCE serves most of it, but the City of Riverside, Banning, part of Moreno Valley and part of Corona run their own utilities, the Imperial Irrigation District serves the eastern Coachella Valley, and the Anza Electric Cooperative serves the Anza area. Three cities add a community choice provider on top of SCE. Every solar proposal has to start from the utility named on your own bill.

Why the utility decides the design here

On an SCE account, a new system goes on the Solar Billing Plan: export credits vary by hour and season and are locked for nine years from the year you start, customers who enroll before 2028 get a bonus credit of about $0.04 per kWh, or about $0.09 if income-qualified, and the settlement bill comes once a year. SCE says those credits are worth less than the power you buy from the grid, so storage and self-use matter.

Riverside Public Utilities works differently. Its Self-Generation Program lets a home size a system up to 150% of its historic annual use, puts residential solar customers on the Domestic Time of Use rate and credits exported energy at the Avoided Cost of Energy rate, $0.0678 per kWh from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027, adjusted by time-of-delivery factors. RPU says more than 4,700 homes and businesses installed solar under its earlier net metering program, and existing NEM agreements are not affected. A bid for a Riverside address that quotes SCE's credits is modeling the wrong utility, and the same goes for Banning, IID, Moreno Valley Utility and Corona's own utility.

Permits, and the manufactured-home exception

Government Code section 65850.52 required cities of more than 50,000 people to offer an online, automated solar permit such as SolarAPP+ by September 30, 2023, and smaller cities by September 30, 2024. The 2024 reports to the Energy Commission show the uneven result across the county: all online in Banning, Canyon Lake, Cathedral City, Indio and La Quinta; 82% in Palm Springs; 48% in Menifee; 5% in Corona; none in Calimesa or Palm Desert. Storage shares ranged from 1% of Banning's permits to 91% of Cathedral City's.

If you live in a mobile or manufactured home in Riverside County, state rules apply. The Department of Housing and Community Development requires an HCD permit for any solar system on a manufactured home and a permit before any alteration begins; its advisory warns that damage from poor installation on those roofs is not visible and tells owners to check the contractor's CSLB license and HCD permit first. HCD's Southern Area Office is at 3737 Main Street in Riverside.

What a Riverside County quote needs to explain

A comparison to ask for

Before comparing prices, ask each bidder to name your utility and its solar rules. A system sized for SCE's Solar Billing Plan in Menifee is not the right design for a Riverside Public Utilities home, where exports earn the City's avoided-cost rate and the system can be built to 150% of past use, or for an IID home in Indio. Then compare the permit route and the price.

Verify the company behind the Riverside County quote

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

Riverside County solar quote questions