Watthub Renewables and Sunrock Distributed Generation complete a 322 kW all-carport solar array that shades patient parking and offsets the majority of the master-metered building’s electricity |
| IRVINE, Calif. — 4th November, 2026 — Watthub Renewables and Sunrock Distributed Generation today announced the completion of a 322-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system at Irvine Heritage Medical Plaza, the three-story Class A medical office building at 18 Endeavor in the Irvine Spectrum. Every panel sits on newly built solar carports spanning the property’s surface lot, converting approximately 108 parking stalls from bare asphalt into shaded, covered parking — and into the building’s primary source of electricity.
The system is expected to generate approximately 515,690 kilowatt-hours in its first year, covering the majority of the plaza’s annual electricity consumption. It was delivered under a 25-year power purchase agreement requiring no upfront capital from ownership: Watthub and Sunrock DG financed, engineered and contracted by SunRenu Solar. Sunrock DG now owns and maintains the array, while the property buys the power it produces at a rate well below Southern California Edison’s.
Prioritizing shade and savings Irvine Heritage Medical Plaza was built in 2008 on just over two acres, with approximately 40,000 square feet of medical suites served by a generous 5.5-per-1,000 parking ratio. That ratio is an asset for a building whose tenants — dentists, ophthalmologists, podiatrists, a pharmacy, and other specialty practices — see patients all day, every day. It is also two acres of Orange County asphalt absorbing sun from May through to October. “Medical office is one of the few property types where the parking lot is part of the patient experience,” said Aaron Moston, Director at Watthub Renewables. “Somebody’s coming out of a medical or dental procedure at two in the afternoon in August. Whether their car is 140 degrees or 95 degrees is not a small thing. Carports were the right structure here before we ever ran the production model — the fact that they also happen to be the best south-facing real estate on the property is what made the project work.” Why a master meter changes the math Irvine Heritage Medical Plaza is master metered: the entire building draws electricity through a single Southern California Edison (SCE) account on the GS-3-TOU commercial rate, and that cost flows through to tenants inside their NNN charges rather than through individual utility bills. For years, that meant every practice in the building carried a share of an electric bill it could not see, could not shop, and could not control — one that rises with each SCE rate increase and, in summer, includes on-peak energy priced above $0.77 per kilowatt-hour. The solar array tackles that shared cost at the source. Because generation is netted at the master meter, the savings are not captured by one tenant — they reduce the building’s total electricity cost, which reduces the operating expenses every suite pays into. First-year savings run to six figures, and because the PPA rate escalates at a fixed 1.5% per year against utility rates that have historically climbed far faster, the gap between what the building would have paid and what it will now pay widens every year of the 25-year term. “A master meter is usually described as a disadvantage — tenants have no visibility into their usage and the owner absorbs every swing in the energy bill,” said Wilson Chang, CEO at Sunrock Distributed Generation. “For a solar project it’s the opposite. One meter, one interconnection, one bill to offset, and every suite in the building benefits automatically. It’s the simplest way to bring solar to a multi-tenant property.” For ownership, the effect compounds beyond the utility line item. Lower operating expenses make the building’s NNN load more competitive against comparable Spectrum-area medical space; covered parking is an amenity tenants can market to their patients; and neither require a dollar of capital or a lien on the property. “As the association manager, member dues are always front and center and we saw a great way to not only provide valuable, shaded parking for our members and their patients, but to produce clean energy that is less expensive than what we already buy from the utility,” said Kristofer Wilks, President at PSG Property Management who manages the commercial association for tenant-owners at Irvine Heritage Medical Plaza. “The project was an easy decision for the board and members to vote in favor of. It adds to the professional aesthetic of the building and provides a long-term hedge against utility rate increases. All done without any up-front capital or needing to assess the members for the cost with a Power Purchase Agreement, the system has already provided monthly savings, which will continue to grow over time as utility prices increase.” Project at a glance
Over its first year, the system is expected to avoid roughly 100 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions based on the California grid’s average emissions rate — comparable to taking about 22 passenger vehicles off the road or powering roughly 80 California homes for a year. Across the 25-year agreement, avoided emissions are projected to exceed 2,400 metric tons. Irvine Heritage Medical Plaza sits minutes from Hoag Hospital Irvine and Kaiser Permanente, with access to the 5 and 405 freeways and the 133 Toll Road — a location that has made it a durable home for independent practices in one of Orange County’s most competitive medical office submarkets. About Watthub Renewables Watthub Renewables develops, engineers, and constructs commercial and industrial solar projects nationwide, with offices in Scottsdale, Arizona and Lehi, Utah. Backed by 15 years of experience in commercial solar, Watthub delivers turnkey systems designed for a 35-year asset life — handling analysis, design, permitting, construction, and commissioning so property owners can move from proposal to production without in-house energy expertise. Learn more at www.watthub.com. About Sunrock Distributed Generation Sunrock Distributed Generation develops, finances, owns, and operates distributed solar and storage assets for commercial, industrial, institutional, and municipal customers across the United States. Sunrock’s power purchase agreements allow property owners to host clean generation and buy the resulting power at predictable rates without capital outlay. Learn more at www.sunrockdg.com. About SunRenu Solar SunRenu Solar is a full-service engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) firm delivering high-quality commercial and industrial solar installations across California and Arizona. A long-tenured company and management allows SunRenu to offer competitive solar integrations with high quality quality control. SunRenu’s integrated roofing-and-solar construction capability allows it to deliver bundled scopes on coordinated schedules. SunRenu Solar is online at http://www.sunrenu.com.
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