Tag: energy finance

Watts Up With Cost Recovery for Municipal Residential Electric Utilities in North Carolina?

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 the North Carolina Eastern Municipal Power Agency (NCEMPA) are discussing the possibility of Duke Energy Progress purchasing NCEMPA’s electric generating assets, and where rate payers may be wondering what such a sale could mean for their future electric rates, as discussed in this previous blog post on affordability of residential electricity in N.C. Continue reading

Financing Sustainable Energy 101: A Tool-Kit for Small Colleges and Universities

Image courtesy of the Jessie Ball duPont Fund

Image courtesy of the Jessie Ball duPont Fund

Jen Weiss is Senior Finance Analyst at the Environmental Finance Center.

Sustainability on college campuses is on the rise.  More than 675 colleges nationwide have become signatories of the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, a network of college and university presidents and chancellors dedicated to promoting sustainability efforts on college campuses.  Today, 22 colleges and universities in North Carolina – including UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University and NC State – are part of the commitment.  But it’s not just the large universities that are focused on sustainability.  Increasingly, small liberal arts colleges are becoming leaders in sustainability and are searching for innovative ways to invest in energy conservation, energy efficiency and renewable energy projects on campus. Continue reading

Structuring Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Finance Programs

solar windGlenn Barnes is a Senior Project Director with the Environmental Finance Center at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

For the past several years, the Environmental Finance Center has worked to set up energy efficiency and renewable energy finance programs around the country as a technical assistance provider to the US Department of Energy.  These programs range from energy improvements for the sponsoring entity’s own operations to programs that encourage clean energy in the community at large.

For communities interested in establishing these types of programs, the process is less about selecting from one of a handful of “off the shelf” program designs and is rather about making a series of choices that shape the final program design.  Continue reading