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Current Blog Posts
The RACE for PACE: Residential PACE Starts to Inch Forward
In case you haven’t heard, Property Assessed Clean Energy programs have picked up the …. well, they’ve picked up the PACE. And just in the nick of time, as many federally-funded clean energy programs are…
New Tool Helps Utilities Assess the Affordability of Water and Wastewater Service
When the five small water systems in Hampton County, South Carolina decided to band together to create the Lowcountry Regional Water System (LRWS), they, like many other small water systems across the country, faced a…
The Business of Water: Capturing and Creating Value
Successful and long-lasting businesses are all about capturing and creating value. Value creation or value added can broadly be defined as taking an action where the benefits of the action exceed the costs of the…
Unrequited Demand in a World of Fixed Infrastructure
It can be hard being a water utility when nobody needs you. Or worse yet, when you have to push people away. But the news seems rife with such stories of unrequited demand for service…
Touching Down with Affordability of Water and Sewer Bills in Alabama
It’s college football season again, and thoughts among many in the South, and elsewhere, turn to tailgating and touchdowns, hot dogs and sodas, field goals and fun. (Here in Chapel Hill, we like to remember…
Crosswalking between Gray and Green Infrastructure for Budget Officers
As the green infrastructure (GI) approach to water management gains momentum, the budget process needs to adapt to some of the characteristics that make green distinct from the more traditional gray infrastructure approach. As communities…
Watershed Finance, Governance, and Beach Houses
It happens almost every year: my family goes to the beach, and we invariably see an amazing house for sale that inspires us to dream. It takes only a few seconds to realize purchasing…
What’s the Buzz about NC Electricity Rates?
Electricity rates and consumer electricity expenditures have wide ranging impacts on critical community and economic development issues in the state. New research from the Environmental Finance Center at UNC Chapel Hill demonstrates how variable pricing…