DIRAC: Direct pay incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act for Colleges
The following search tool uses data derived from the DoE, IPEDS, and NREL to estimate return on investment for solar arrays on college campuses. Comparisons are drawn to typical endowments, allowing schools to see the financial benefit of investing in on-campus solar. The following assumes the institution has 501c3 nonprofit status, the array is under 1 MegaWatt in size, and annual energy savings estimates use a nameplate capacity of 80 kW. The calculator tool below the search table allows one to alter some of these assumptions.
PLEASE NOTE: This tool is in beta testing. Other Energy Communities exist that are not taken into account just yet. Please see here for more information.
If you'd like to jump directly to the calculator tool, click here
School data was spatially joined with solar resource data to estimate the potential for solar power on each campus. The resulting data was then spatially joined with the DoE's energy community data to inform the tax credit available to each institution. Brownfield data is not included.
Columns returned include:
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Institution Name
City of institution
State of institution
IRA Direct Pay Incentive estimate as a decimal (e.g., 0.30 corresponds to a 30% credit)
Yearly Estimated Savings, in US Dollars, approximated from NREL solar resource data. Assumes an 80 kW array.
Average daily solar resource data from NREL in Wh/m^2/day for the campus location given in IPEDS. Averaged over a year.
Estimated return rate on investment assuming $2.00/installed Watt of DC solar, 0.2 panel efficiency, 0.8 system efficiency, 12 cents/kWh, the tax credit for the institution as estimated from DoE data, and solar resource given by NREL data. (e.g., 0.11 corresponds to 11%). You can customize your calculations in the calculator below the search tool.
Additional Info:
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These estimates are intended to be a starting point only and are not tax advice. The data is limited by what is contained in IPEDS, NREL, and DoE data. Further incentives can be leveraged as well, including:
US-made materials = additional 10%
Low-inclome community or Native American land = additional 10%
Low-income community benefit project = additional 10%
Brownfield (EPA) status = additional 10% if not already satisfying Energy Community credit.
Maps:
Click here for a map of the institutions of higher learning.
Click here for a map of the institutions within an Energy Community (excludes brownfields and depicts only the continental US)
Search:
Direct pay incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act for Colleges
Calculator:
Solar Cost Calculator
Thanks for stopping by.
Some Final Notes:
Please feel free to use and share with attribution.
For more on Schools and the Inflation Reduction Act, see here.
NB: html and javascript are not languages I am very experienced with. Very open to help cleaning up the appearance of this search tool. Please get in touch.
