This paper develops and applies a replicable financial methodology for evaluating rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) installations on public-school buildings in low-income urban communities. Using Trenton Central High School (New Jersey) as a primary case study, a 638. 8 kW system modeled via HelioScope simulation with NREL Typical Meteorological Year (TMY) weather data. The analysis develops and compares three distinct ownership and financing structures: a school-owned in-house consumption model, an investor-owned power purchase agreement (PPA), and an investor-owned community solar arrangement. The methodology integrates incentive stacking under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), including the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) with low-income and energy community adders, New Jersey's Successor Solar Incentive (SuSI) program, net energy metering, MACRS accelerated depreciation, and the Production Tax Credit (PTC). Financial performance is evaluated using NPV, IRR, and levelized cost of energy (LCOE) across base, pessimistic, and worst-case scenarios for utility rate escalation and cost of capital. The school-owned model yields the strongest financial outcome (NPV: 2. 09M; IRR: 24. 4%; LCOE: 12. 0 ct/kWh), while the community solar structure offers the greatest equity and social benefit. The paper argues that the combination of IRA direct-pay for tax-exempt entities, low-income area ITC adders, and state-level solar incentives creates an exceptionally favorable economic environment for solar deployment in under-resourced school districts, a model directly replicable across comparable U. S. institutions. Environmental analysis estimates 343 metric tons of CO₂ avoided annually, with a 25-year social cost of carbon benefit calculated under multiple discount rate scenarios.
Shabarish et al. (Sun,) studied this question.