Marc Torra is a part time Ph.D. Student at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy. He combines his studies with his job as a development practitioner specialised in the financial and economic analysis of on-grid and off-grid renewable energy electrification projects in South countries. He started working on this field in 2001.

Marc's PhD is about designing a conceptual framework for increasing the sustainability of off-grid solar electrification services in South countries.
Many off-grid solar projects in South countries fail within five years because the lack the technical, institutional, social or economic sustainability makes them financially inviable. In turn, this causes a negative social and environmental impact on the electrified communities.

The main two obstacles to sustainability are the confluence of stakeholders with diverging interests, alongside with a wide range of documents to evaluate sustainability in all its seven dimensions.

Marc’s research is focused on the application of ecological economics’ principles to add the programmatic, technical, institutional, economic, social and environmental dimensions to the projected financial statements of the electrification service, thus turning them into a single tool for integrated reporting.

In this way, Marc aims at helping stakeholders align priorities by modelling the financial impact of not attending sustainability in all its seven dimensions. He plans to do so by projecting and consolidating five sets of financial statements, each centred on a different reporting entity. The five entities are:
* the power developer,
* productive activities,
* government,
* society, and
* the environment.