How financially healthy are the municipal residential electric utilities in North Carolina? That is a broad question, and one of keen interest to many customers of those utilities. This is especially true at a time when Duke Energy Progress and … Read more

Last Thursday, while we were presenting one of two Water Research Foundation webinars (view recordings of the webcasts for free) on the financial strategies that water utilities have or can employ to improve revenue resiliency against changing financial trends, a … Read more

David R. Tucker is a Project Director at the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My work at the UNC Environmental Finance Center frequently centers around the study, benchmarking, and understanding of rates, especially residential rates: … Read more

Shadi Eskaf is a Senior Project Director for the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Our research shows that water rates have been rising faster than CPI inflation in the past few years for hundreds … Read more

Stacey Isaac Berahzer is a Senior Project Director for the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina, and works from a satellite office in Georgia. Stormwater utilities are an interesting finance tool for addressing nonpoint sources of water … Read more

Jeff Hughes is a Faculty member at the UNC School of Government and the Director of the UNC Environmental Finance Center. Jeff is also the Principal Investigator for the Water Research Foundation’s “Defining a Resilient Business Model” Project (#4366). Conventional … Read more

Shadi Eskaf is a Senior Project Director for the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. A couple of months ago, we blogged that water utilities’ operating revenues are generally continuing to grow every year, but … Read more

Shadi Eskaf is a Senior Project Director for the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina. Previous blog posts (here and here) discussed the fact that per capita water consumption is declining. The financial ramifications can be significant, … Read more

Shadi Eskaf is a senior project director for the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “What is the [national/state/recommended] threshold of affordable rates? Is it 2.5 percent MHI?” If I had a dollar for … Read more

Matt Harris is the Marketing and Outreach Coordinator for the Environmental Finance Center. The etymology of the word “dashboard” is an interesting story of technological change and innovation over time.  Originally the name given to the plank(s) of wood or … Read more