New reports highlight pricing & financing tools for water systems

As local communities contend with more floods, worsening droughts and aging infrastructure, finding ways to pay for critical water infrastructure upgrades is an enormous challenge. How do we transform water utilities' business models to ensure stable revenues? And how do we make better use of conventional financing tools to build a new generation of water infrastructure? Two new reports from Ceres explore the innovative financial solutions that can update our local water systems, improve conservation efforts and ensure adequate water supplies now and well into the future. Download the reports using the links below, or read on to learn more about each report. Measuring and Mitigating Water Revenue Variability: Understanding How Pricing Can Advance Conservation Without Undermining Utilities' Revenue Goals Bond Financing Distributed Water Systems: How to Make Better Use of our Most Liquid Market for Financing Water Infrastructure Learn more: Measuring and Mitigating Water Revenue Variability: Understanding How Pricing Can Advance Conservation Without Undermining Utilities' Revenue Goals As water utilities across North America look to the market to finance the replacement and expansion of outdated water delivery systems, the need for confident revenue projections grows. With many hundreds of billions of dollars of needed water infrastructure investment on the horizon, it is more important than ever to anticipate how changing water use patterns and rates drive revenue risk. This report examines real financial and water use data from three North American water utilities to demonstrate how rate structures can mitigate or intensify revenue variability. It also introduces alternative financial and pricing strategies that can assist water utilities in stabilizing revenue without compromising the commitment to water conservation. Download the report. Bond Financing Distributed Water Systems: How to Make Better Use of our Most Liquid Market for Financing Water Infrastructure Across the United States, communities are planning major investments in water conservation and green stormwater infrastructure to manage droughts and floods.While these distributed approaches to managing water are often more cost-effective than building new reservoirs, pipelines, tunnels and treatment plants, figuring out how to finance them is challenged by the widespread belief that utilities can use their debt only to build projects they own outright. With limited cash available for distributed water solutions, it is no surprise that these types of investments struggle to keep pace with debt-financed centralized infrastructure. This report asks the question, can we learn from cities like Seattle, Las Vegas and New York City how to make better use of the bond market to finance this new type of infrastructure? Download the report. Sharlene Leurig Director, Water Program Ceres

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