Seattle City Councilmember Bruce Harrell

Joint Press Release issued today (8/02/2010) by the Mayor & Seattle City Council

Technology grants promote access, job skills, education, and civic engagement

SEATTLE – Mayor Mike McGinn and the City Council announced today that 24 Seattle community organizations will receive a total of $300,000 in Technology Matching Fund grants. This money will enable services for more than 15,000 residents throughout the city, build technology skills for employment and healthcare using ESL software to teach English to new residents, as well as teach social media and online civic engagement skills. The grant funds will also increase access for people with disabilities and also provide youth with positive alternatives to violence by teaching new media journalism skills and providing after-school homework help.

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At the Energy, Technology and Civil Rights Committee meetings on January 6th and February 3rd the work programs for both City Light and the Department of Information Technology (DoIT) were approved by the committee. The work programs can be viewed below.

Also, on Monday, February 22, the Council announced our 2010 priorities to a standing room only Council Chambers. The priorities are laid out in three groups with sub-topics. My priorities cover Clean Energy, Access and Transparency and Race and Social Justice. In addition to my three priorities, there are 14 more priorities that will be divided up among my colleagues. You can view Council’s briefly described priorities below:

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This afternoon (12/16/09), I issued a press release calling for a Smart Grid. Below is a post with more information.

System would save people money, modernize City Light’s basic infrastructure and increase reliability and conservation

SEATTLE – In an effort to position City Light on the cutting edge of customer service, Seattle City Councilmember Bruce Harrell has directed the Utility to develop a specific plan for the development of a Smart Grid in 2010. “I want a plan that puts the Full Council and the Executive in a position to make a funding decision for Smart Grid deployment by the middle of 2010,” says Councilmember Harrell. A Smart Grid basically adds two-way communication technology to the existing electrical grid where power and information can flow between the utility and the customer to create a system that operates more efficiently and reliably. It will also result in giving customers more control over their power consumption.

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Seattle City Light is uniquely positioned to provide low-cost, clean electricity to our customers—who own the public utility. Approximately 88.83% of Seattle City Light’s electricity generation is from hydro, a renewable energy. In comparison, about 50% of the United States electrical production comes from coal. The carbon footprint of coal is approximately 1000 grams of CO2 per kWh of electricity generated when compared to 10-30 grams of CO2 per kWh of electricity generated from hydro. Seattle City Light offers an average rate of 6.42 cents per kWh, compared to the national average of 9.7 cents per kWh. With the commitment Seattle and Washington state has demonstrated with the passage of I-937 in 2006 (3%-renewable energy of its load by 2012, 9%-renewable energy of its load by 2016, and 15%-renewable energy of its load by 2020) and Seattle City Light’s commitment with a 5-Year Conservation Plan to avoid 1 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, what is the next step to continue providing the lowest rates and the cleanest electricity in Seattle?

That next step is Smart Grid. IBM’s slogan is “building a smarter planet.” Smart grid is the answer for building a smarter Seattle. Smart grid is a revolutionary change in how a utility generates and distributes electricity. The revolution has begun, with a federal stimulus package of $3.4 billion for smart grid technology. From these funds, $9.6 million was granted to Seattle City Light and the University of Washington for the development of a “smart micro grid” on the Seattle campus. Consumer education and engaging the public on what exactly is a smart grid and how it helps residents is absolutely vital as we discuss the development of a smart grid. Continue Reading »

Our Energy and Technology Committee recently reviewed City Light’s key milestones for the 2009 year. I am very pleased to report that City Light has been rated as an “Elite Utility” in terms of customer service by J.D. Power and Associates.

Customer Service: City Light continues to improve their customer service. From a base of 84,000 streetlights, in 2008, 19,067 were reported out. In 2009, 12,799 were reported out, which is a 6,268 reduction. The reduction is even greater when we look back to 2004 where there were 23,367 outages. Based on our policy directives, the Utility is on track to achieve a 10-14 day turnaround on streetlight repair in 2010 and outages have been significantly reduced. In addition, phase two of a group re-lamping scheme will be completed by the end of 2009, with phases three and four on track for completion in 2010 and 2011. We have seen great improvement on the streetlight issue and our plan calls for City Light to improve even more. Also, our push for E-billing has become a reality and to date, 26,000 customers have signed up so far. In 2010, I have added “Customer Service” to the ETC committee’s responsibilities as a means to examine City Light, Seattle Public Utilities and the city’s Customer Service Bureau to conduct a “best practices” approach to customer service.

System Reliability. System reliability continues to significantly improve. The average number of outages per customer has fallen below the Utility goal of one per year. We continue to examine the problem areas in our City with an aging underground system and have allocated substantial budget dollars toward their repair. We are also addressing this by injecting gel into the cables. This strengthens the integrity of the cable and extends its life at a lower cost than replacing.

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In January 2009, a 93-year-old Michigan man died as a result of freezing indoors just after the local power company restricted his use of electricity because of unpaid bills. As we approach incredible cold weather, our office monitors what occurs in other cities to make sure we don’t repeat the same mistakes.

Our Energy and Technology Committee has taken steps to make sure this does not happen here. Recognizing the challenges our lower income residents have, we required the utility to exert stronger advocacy efforts to generate volunteerism in our electric bill assistance program and this resulted in approximately $258,000 in donations. Based on these efforts, I am proud to report that we have achieved a 17 percent increase in donations from 2008. In 2010, the ETC Committee will approve legislation to accept and allocate almost $800,000 from an Enron settlement to be available for low-income energy assistance. In Seattle, we care about our neighbors and we will continue to take measures to make sure the Michigan tragedy does not happen here.

Project Share Website – Contribute Online: http://www.seattle.gov/light/HELP/Share/

People must be kept warm!