Anyone who has watched The Real Housewives of Orange County knows that people who live in the upscale community have a lot of money to spend on just about anything they want. So plunking down a few million bucks for solar panels should be no problem for the school district in the heart of Orange County, the Irvine Unified School District (IUSD), right?

Wrong.

Despite the high living you might see on television dramas and reality shows, the IUSD is pretty much like every other school district in California — the money has dried up.

So when IUSD board member Mike Parham decided his district needed to go solar, he also knew it would have to make financial sense.

“We knew the price of buying and installing solar was coming down, and the incentives were at an all-time high, so there was no reason to wait,” Parham said.

Shown is an example of solar panels installed at Brotman Hall at California State University, Long Beach.

Low cost was good. No cost was better, so that is what Parham and his district did.

The IUSD voted unanimously in December 2009 to incorporate solar at each of its 21 schools, selecting SPG Solar and Sun Edison to build and finance the project — all at no cost to the district.

This is not a charity thing. Or a giveaway. It is a sound business deal made possible by tax incentives on the one hand and a sharply decreasing cost of buying and installing solar panels on the other.

Here’s how it works: Schools, of course, do not pay taxes, so tax breaks are of little interest to them. Enter SPG Solar and SunEdison.

These two companies will rent the roofs from the IUSD, build the system, create the power, then sell it to the schools — just like a utility might. There’s only one major difference: it is cheaper. Way cheaper. From seven to 15 percent cheaper. And during the 20-year life of the deal, that comes to more than $17 million, says Tom Rooney, president of SPG Solar.

For all you gear heads out there, “This project will generate over 6.6 million kilowatt hours of solar energy per year,” Rooney said. “Over the life of the project, this will remove 127 million pounds of CO2, the equivalent of removing 12,000 cars from the road for one year.”

If the name of the company, SPG Solar, sounds familiar, it should. This is one of the oldest and largest solar installers in California. It has created solar systems in Death Valley, Napa Valley, and pretty much everywhere in between, including schools.

But the IUSD project is thought to be the largest of its kind in the country.

However, as good as the finances are, what really has school board members excited is what is happening in the classrooms. IUSD is developing a curriculum that takes full advantage of all the information its solar system is creating. This includes lessons in science and math, of course, but also business, finance and even art.

“Our responsibility is to squeeze the most out of every dollar, and to provide the best education possible with those limited resources,” said Parham, who in addition to being nationally recognized in the field of renewable energy for schools is also an investment banker. “Students, who will one day run this country, should learn about the viability of solar energy in order to be well-prepared for the job market of the future.”

Thanks to Parham, the people of Orange County are still getting whatever they want. Only this time they are making money from it. Go figure.