Research Projects

The local government financial sustainability and energy transitions project examines local government financial sustainability through the energy transition by building a financial model that allows for the testing of financial scenarios in a specific case and exploring the decision-making process that officials would undertake in the various scenarios.

The model builds on a cost of supply study completed for the municipality, which established the costs to the municipality of being an electricity distributor, in relation to the revenues the municipality collects for electricity. This established whether or not the municipality is able to continue using electricity surpluses to support other municipal functions. The financial model then contextualise this in relation to other financial pressure that the municipality could experience, offering it a tool for informing financial decisions making in the future.

Once the model has been produced, scenarios of potential futures will be run based on input from the municipality, and the outcomes of these will be explored with municipal officials, to understanding there decision-making process in response to these the scenarios, and the institutional work that they will need to undertake to bring about change in municipal operations to manage these scenarios.