With less than two months left before the Solar Decathlon kicks off at the Great Park, Irvine officials recently voted to accept a $68,870 Department of Energy grant to bolster promotion for the international event.

“This isn’t an Irvine event,” Councilwoman Beth Krom said, but rather a “major regional event,” urging her colleagues to ensure marketing of the competition is appropriately wide-ranging.

While Councilwoman Christina Shea said the council is “100 percent behind” the Solar Decathlon, to be held at the Great Park in October, she asked Irvine spokesman Craig Reem, who is handling promotion for the event, to ask regional businesses to foot some of the promotional cost, too.

The council, acting as the Great Park Corp. board in late July, unanimously approved accepting the federal funding. Members decided to use the $14,000 portion of the grant initially budgeted to cover public safety needs at the event for marketing as well.

The council, without discussion on Tuesday, gave its final OK to accept the grant.

The council also voted in favor of a $27,500 contract for event management for the competition with Momentum Marketing Inc.

Previously the city had approved a contract with Flying Bull, a company that has done event services work for the city at the Great Park. But recently the company backed out after deciding to instead do work for the DOE in connection with the event, a situation which the agency said could present a conflict of interest.

The company was hired to fill the role previously filled by Cliff Wallace, manager of real property and site administration, who resigned in July for a job at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum.

The City Council agreed to host the Solar Decathlon for a second time in February 2014, with the caveat that it wouldn’t cost Irvine anything outside of the $200,000 the city gave Team Orange.

The Great Park was where the Solar Decathlon was held in 2013, the first time since its 2002 inception that the event was held outside of Washington, D.C.

This year, 15 teams are expected to compete, including an Orange County team fielded from UC Irvine, Chapman University, Irvine Valley College and Saddleback College.