Orange County’s first clean energy agency is at risk of losing 65% of its customers in 2025.
That’s because Irvine accounts for that much of the Orange County Power Authority’s customer base, and the Irvine City Council voted unanimously during an emergency meeting Thursday to authorize the city’s withdrawal from the OCPA sometime in 2025.
“I want to express our disappointment in Irvine’s consideration of leaving the Orange County Power Authority,” said Fred Jung, OCPA board chair. “OCPA has been remarkably successful not only in procuring clean energy and greening the California grid – for which they’ve been nationally recognized – but also in creating choice for customers and competition in the marketplace.”
However, Irvine pulling out of OCPA is not inevitable.
City Manager Oliver Chi said the city’s representatives to the power agency will “continue to work through all of the issues to try to create improvements” with the power authority.
But, if the city remains displeased with the cost of service and the agency’s level of transparency, the council has granted Chi the authority to formally submit the city’s intent to withdraw.
Irvine was the first municipality to join OCPA, and the city loaned the agency about $7 million to help get it off the ground. Soon after, Huntington Beach, Buena Park and Fullerton also joined. Jung is a Fullerton councilmember.
But ever since its takeoff, the fledgling agency has struggled to stay airborne through turbulent skies.
Huntington Beach and the County of Orange, another early planned member, pulled out of the authority in 2023 after reports from an OC Grand Jury, the county government and state auditors all criticized the agency for transparency issues and contract management. The power authority changed its CEO and implemented several other changes recommended.
Irvine considered pulling out, too. But, last year’s council decided to stick with the power agency for the time being. Now after newly elected councilmembers have been sworn in, the council is expanded and has a new mayor.
On Thursday, Irvine officials expressed concerns about the power authority’s transparency. Chi accused the agency of “what appears to be a deliberate withholding and misrepresenting of electrical power cost details from the city of Irvine.”
Councilmember Kathleen Treseder, a city representative to OCPA, said she believes the agency is generally well run, but getting information from it about recent rate changes has been like “pulling teeth.”
Mayor Larry Agran expressed no confidence in the future of the agency.
“I think others feel OCPA can be fixed,” he said. “I don’t think it can be fixed. I think there are such structural questions in it that suggest to me we have to begin to move away from OCPA.”
An OCPA spokesperson said the agency seeks to collaborate with Irvine.
“Irvine is an important OCPA member city, and OCPA looks forward to collaborating with city staff and councilmembers to get them any needed information,” a statement issued Friday afternoon said.
At least one other city sees a brighter future with the agency. Fountain Valley joined OCPA just this month and will start receiving energy from the authority in fall 2026. Costa Mesa leaders are considering having the city join.
“While Irvine’s desire to separate from OCPA presents a challenge for meeting our county – and statewide – climate goals, it does not diminish our commitment to creating a cleaner, greener Orange County,” said Susan Sonne, OCPA vice chair, and a Buena Park councilmember.
OCPA began providing electrical power to commercial and residential customers in 2022. It is one of several local power authorities across California that has promised to serve as an alternative to monopolistic electrical utilities with the express intent of providing cleaner energy at competitive, or more affordable, rates.
OCPA delivers electricity to its customers via Southern California Edison’s infrastructure, but sources its energy independently from the utility.
The agency offers customers different rates based on the level of renewable energy in each mix.
Until Thursday’s council meeting, Irvine customers had been placed, by default, into a utility rate priced on consumers receiving 100% renewable energy.
As a result, Irvine residents have been paying the highest rates for electricity of any city in the county, Agran said.
The power authority recently alerted Irvine that rates at that level will rise in 2025 by as much as $210 per year per household, according to Chi.
Thus, councilmembers decided Thursday to make the default service level for Irvine residents OCPA’s “basic choice” option.
The basic choice is marketed as getting about 44% of its electricity from renewable sources. Yet, only about 10% of power in that plan’s mix came from renewable sources in 2023, according to the agency.
Another 62.7% of power for that plan came from “unspecified sources,” meaning that the agency purchased it through open market transactions and cannot trace from where it came.
Irvine customers can still opt-in to the 100% renewable plan, choose a “smarter choice” plan that drew about 58% of its energy from renewable sources last year, or opt-out of any OCPA plan.
OCPA reported that, statewide, about 37% of California’s electricity comes from renewable energy sources.
Southern California Edison reports that customers enrolled in OCPA’s basic plan pay less than 1% less for energy compared to SCE customers and customers in OCPA’s smarter choice and 100% renewable plans pay slightly more, on average.
Agran said that, regardless of the city’s relationship with OCPA, Irvine will continue to be a leader on green issues.
“We are environmental leaders here in Irvine,” he said. “So to the extent that we have taken a wrong turn with OCPA or improperly put down too big a bet on it, we need to make a course correction in my view.”
He advocated for setting up a rooftop solar incentive plan and getting started on a citywide reforestation plan.
Agran, elected to the post of mayor this November, campaigned on those ideas, including planting at least 200,000 trees in Irvine.
He also said on his campaign website that, as a councilmember, he “repeatedly urged” Irvine to withdraw from OCPA.
Beginning the process to do just that was his first major piece of business as mayor.
He called Thursday’s emergency meeting to discuss Irvine’s relationship with the OCPA just two days after he and several other new councilmembers were sworn in for their new terms.
