I'd be very grateful if someone can help steer me through the maze here. We have a new municipal building breaking ground right now in central New Jersey, and there's no solar planned for it - yet. The opinions vary from "too expensive" (the current winner) to "you'll make money." From the research I've done so far, because it's a municipal (local township government) building, the normal financing available for residential, non-profit, and commercial do not apply. Please correct me If I'm wrong.

I'd like to be able to show, with realistic (if approximate) figures, that installing solar on the new building will be a good deal for local taxpayers.

Being local taxpayers' money the cost to purchase/install for outright ownership is probably not feasible as it would require a bond and voting. Even though it seems that is the best long-term value.

It appears the only practical option is to lease, and If I understand it the justification for this is that over the lease term (?20 years?) you save the difference between the leased rate per kWh vs the market rate, which is expected to inflate.

Is there another way?

If you use less than you generate, who benefits from the excess? Is that where SRECs come in - how does all that work?

Are there Federal grants or other incentives that may apply to a municipal installation?

One gotcha with the lease is that if the price of power falls in the future you are locked into a higher rate - is this a realistic possibility?

The figures I have calculated are below - do these look right?

I still need to come up with a savings per year ... any help, flaws and fallacies pointed out, would be appreciated.

Thanks!
CALCULATION OF GENERATING CAPACITY OF ROOF
What Quantity Units
roof area 19000 square feet
useable roof area for panels (SE-facing) 9500 square feet
NJ regional energy production factor 1500 kWh/kW-year
reduction due to roof orientation 10%
Assumed generating power per solar panel 320 Watts
# of solar panels in horizontal direction 56 panels
# of solar panels in vertical direction 19 panels
total number of panels 1064 panels
total kWh (S-facing) 340 kW
total kWh (SE-facing) 306 KW
Annual production using NJ energy production factor 459,648 KWh/year
ESTIMATED MUNICIPAL ELECTRIC USE
2017 budgeted electric bill $335,000 dollars
estimated JCP&L 2017 rate 10 c/kWh
estimated usage 2017 33,500 KWh/year
PS I have tried asking solar installers all this, but the roof is too small to interest the bigger ones, and the others are reluctant because of the local government lowest price bidding rule and the resulting poor margin or wasted time. Municipal does seem to be weirdly set up make it difficult for taxpayers to benefit from solar!