Parks and City Light Committee 7/1/2026

Oh, we're on screen.

Did we start?

Okay.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Today is Wednesday, July 1st.

It's the meeting of the Parks and City Light Committee, and I am going to call it to order.

My name is Deborah Juarez, Chair of the Committee, and Mr. Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Strauss?

Council Member Saka?

Here.

Council Member Rivera.

Vice Chair Kettle.

Here.

Chair Warris.

Here.

Chair, there are three members present.

All right, and I should add for the record that Council Member Strauss has been excused, but he will be present to vote on July 15th when we do the rate ordinance.

And Council Member Strauss did submit questions to Seattle City Light, which I understand will be answered today.

Let's move on to approval of the agenda.

There is no objection.

The agenda will be adopted.

Not hearing or seeing an objection, the agenda is adopted.

I'm going to go into the chair's report.

There will be a regular public comment period before the items on the agenda.

Comments should be related today on today's agenda.

I'm sorry, let me say this again.

Comments should be related to items on today's agenda and within the purview of this committee during public comment.

There is one resolution and two ordinances on the agenda today.

The first and second items are City Lights 2027-2032 Strategic Plan Resolution.

and the new retail rates ordinance.

These items will be presented together as the resolution informs the ordinance.

This is the second time we are hearing these two items across three council meetings.

Today there will be an in-depth presentation based on questions council members submitted for Seattle City Light last week, which Seattle City Light responded to with a memo yesterday.

as you recall on June 17th we asked our colleagues to submit questions as well as some other folks on the floor and central staff and Seattle City Light was to meet and respond to those questions by yesterday's deadline which was yesterday June 30th correct clerk Okay.

The presentation, I understand, is nine pages of a PowerPoint presented by Rob Santoff, interim GM CEO of Seattle City Light, Angela Bertrand and Christy Granger of Seattle City Light, and Eric McConaughey, our own Eric McConaughey from Council Central Staff.

The third item on the agenda is an ordinance that gives City Light the authority to enter into long-term agreements for power purchase agreements.

The presentation consists of eight slides and will be presented by, again, Rob Stanoff, Siobhan Doherty, and again, our own Eric McConaughey.

Should note for the record that we also had not just a PowerPoint, but a summary and fiscal note that was prepared from Seattle City Lights Legal Counsel Jeff Wolf.

I expect a vote on agendas one and three today and the rates ordinance will be voted on on July 15th.

With that, we will go to public comment.

Mr. Clerk, we will now open up the hybrid, we will open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda and within the purviews committee.

Mr. Clerk, how many people we got signed up?

We have zero in-person speakers and four remote speakers.

Great.

Then let's go with the four remote and give each of them two minutes.

And you need to tell...

Paul, do you want to go ahead and...

Yeah, go ahead, read the rules.

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 60 minutes unless extended at the discretion of the committee chair.

Speakers will be called in the order which they are registered.

We will begin with in-person speakers and then move on to remote speakers.

Today, just remote speakers.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The first remote speaker will be Alice Lockhart, followed by Rebecca Young, then David Haynes and Lauren Redfield.

All right.

Each person has two minutes and you will hear the 10 second star six and then you'll hear the 10 second or the beat for that means you have 10 seconds.

Go ahead.

Who's our first speaker, Paul?

Alice Lockhart.

Alice Lockhart.

Go ahead, Alice.

I see you.

There you go.

Good afternoon, council members.

I'm Alice Lockhart calling from D5, and I organize the 350 Seattle.

We completely concur with and appreciate Council Bill 121231's premise that Seattle City Light needs a new large load rate class to ensure that large load customers pay their fair share.

But we were surprised to see this on the agenda so early in the moratorium, and we heard the same sentiment from people who spoke up for the moratorium last months.

What the heck?

We thought there'd be community consultation, etc.

I would love to see the same sentiment expressed by Council and I'd love to see a unanimously passed amendment that reassures the public that there will be community input to a final and very likely stronger policy.

Please consider an amendment to the effect of Council does not intend for this policy to preclude any legislation we may announce after community consultation during the data center moratorium.

We reserve the right to change, improve, and or augment this policy in future legislation.

It feels like that would be completely doable and would ensure, for instance, that y'all, once we've talked, could enact yet stronger protections against stranded assets and other things that obviously Seattle residents would love to see.

If you don't believe such an amendment would, you know, sort of hold legal water and be, you know, implementable, I guess I would ask council members to hold off on this legislation until the moratorium has, until we've done our work during the moratorium.

But I really, you know, stronger policy now, yet stronger policy later.

Yay all of you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

The next remote public speaker will be Rebecca Young.

Rebecca, when you hear the chime, please press star six.

I don't see her tile.

Christy.

Oh, there she is.

Rebecca.

Can you hear me?

Yep, we can.

Go ahead.

Wonderful.

Good afternoon and thank you.

My name is Rebecca Young.

I'm a resident in District 3, and I'm here regarding the proposed large load rate plan for data centers.

This is a good first step toward a more comprehensive large load policy.

I support creating a new dedicated customer class for large data centers, including requiring full infrastructure responsibility to ensure that existing customers, especially Seattle residents and small businesses, do not bear the costs of building out new infrastructures for data centers.

I also support requiring new data centers to pay the actual cost of procuring new power transmission and associated services, instead of allowing them to benefit from Seattle's publicly funded legacy hydro power.

I would urge you to implement this new policy immediately for new large load facilities and expand it to existing facilities above that 10 MVA threshold as soon as legally possible.

For example, at contract renewal, to ensure that all large customers are treated consistently over time.

And then finally, I encourage you to view this new policy as a minimum baseline for protecting ratepayers and ensure that the city's ongoing moratorium and work plan remain the space for broader questions regarding data center regulation and policy development and ensure ample and ongoing public engagement and participation.

and this ordinance should not preclude any changes or improvements that could come about in response to community input during the moratorium period.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Rebecca.

The next public speaker is David Haynes.

Mr. Haynes, go ahead.

Hi, thank you, David Haynes.

I wanted to talk about the parks because Myrtle Edwards Park, you know, There used to be a path that you could take when you're hiking, walking, or literally sprinting.

When you're running through the park, I personally run on soft ground with ankle support.

And I used to use Myrtle Edwards Park and then stop off at the pull-up bar.

And I swear, it saved me during COVID.

I got in great shape.

But I went over there a while back and they got rusted rope that has blocked off all the grass.

and they got like 75,000 plants.

And yet they didn't put one plant in between the park and the toxic industrial gravel dusted train yard.

And I'm wondering why the parks department didn't emphasize the need to take these beautiful hedgerow bushes and line them all next to each other and create a gigantically beautiful green wall of trees so that we don't have to look at the godforsaken train yard in the waterfront and it's like everybody has to stay on the path of asphalt.

They've heated up that park and they took away the pull-up bar and the dip bar and the sit-up bars and there was like three pull-up bars, three separate sizes and they put a concrete heated bike path, not a bike path but a bike parking lot for cement that just reflects like from the sun and just burns your eyes.

It sucks.

And it needs to be slightly adjusted so that we can block off the chain link fence that allows the gravel dust to come back into the park and give us a soft path.

It's almost like those people from a long time ago who used to yell at children when you step on the grass.

This is the type of policy.

It's like you can't have hemp vests anymore and you can't walk on the grass because they've surrounded it with all of these bushes with this ugly, rustic...

Thank you, Mr. Haynes.

Next public speaker will be Lauren Redfield.

Lauren?

Can you hear me?

Yep.

Go ahead.

Good afternoon, council members.

I am a born and raised Seattle resident of District 6 and a lead organizer of the Washington AI Resistance.

I strongly support Seattle City Light's proposed large load rate policy.

It is one of the strongest utility-centered approaches emerging nationally and represents an important first step towards protecting Seattle rate payers.

It also establishes Seattle as a national leader in this space, and I want to commend you for the policy.

I encourage the council to adopt this policy and apply it immediately to any new facility that has not yet secured a binding service agreement.

Existing large load customers should also transition into this customer class at the earliest legally available opportunity.

I also urge the Council to review this as a foundation and not the final word on data center policy.

The ongoing moratorium should continue to examine broader issues including overall climate impacts, grid reliability and flexibility, protections against stranded assets, how to balance large load growth with long-term energy planning, water use, land use, labor standards, and how limited clean electricity should be allocated among competing public needs.

Finally, I ask whether any Council member would consider sponsoring a simple amendment of legislative intent Clarifying that the rate policy does not limit future legislation.

For example, something along the lines of...

That would make it clear that this is an important first step and not the last.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That was the final public speaker.

Oh, that's it?

I thought we had four.

That was four?

All right.

So with that, there are no additional speakers, so the public comment period is now closed.

Let's move on to D, which is items of business.

Item one, we will now move on to our first two items of business.

Will the clerk please read items one and two into the record?

Agenda items one and two resolution three two two one zero and council bill one two one two three one relating to City Light Department a resolution adopting a 2027 through 2032 strategic plan for Seattle City Light and endorsing the associated rate path and an ordinance establishing new rate retail rate schedules establishing new retail rate schedules a new customer class and conditions of service for data centers whose electricity demand constitutes a new large load, modifying customer charges for service connections, modifying customer eligibility for residential rate assistance and augmenting the rate stabilization account mechanism.

There will be a briefing and discussion on both items and a vote on resolution 32210. Thank you.

Do you want to read the record into the record the presenters and then I'll go ahead with my script.

Yeah, the presenters today are Interim General Manager and CEO of Seattle City Light, Rob Santoff, Angela Bertrand, and Christy Granger from Seattle City Light, and additionally, Eric McConaughey from Central Staff.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

We have representatives from Seattle City Light that will be presenting for us today, and my understanding is that we have a 19-page PowerPoint, which you've pared it down from 22 from last week, so thank you for that 19 instead of 22 pages.

We do plan on voting on the resolution today, and as you know, we will have a third meeting about the rates ordinance on July 15th, where we will vote.

With that, presenters, will you please introduce yourself and begin your presentation?

Wait, wait, before you do that, let me just say I have one more thing to say.

I understand that your presentation integrates answers to the 13 questions submitted by my colleagues and council members, some on the committee, some not on the committee.

that were asked to submit questions to Seattle City Light.

And I think we asked for them on June 17th at our last committee meeting.

And Seattle City Light responded to those questions, met the deadline, which was yesterday, June 30th.

So this presentation, my understanding, will answer some of those questions, those 13 questions that were put to Seattle City Light, correct?

Yes.

Okay.

With that, I'm going to let you guys go ahead and do your presentation and then I'll open the floor to my colleagues.

All right.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Juarez and committee members.

I'm Rob Santoff, intern general manager and CEO at Seattle City Light.

Thank you for inviting us back to continue the discussion on the Seattle City Lights 2027 through 2032 strategic plan and the 2027 to 2028 rate ordinance.

Since our first briefing on June 17th, we've appreciated the thoughtful questions and the Council's engagement on our long-term needs.

In the last meeting, we covered the utility six-year roadmap for modernizing essential infrastructure, improving system resilience, and increasing operational transparency.

We also had a high-level summary of the review panel's letter and their support of the strategic plan and the rate path.

The review panel letter was transmitted as part of the legislation package.

The companion rate ordinance applies the stable, predictable foundation required to maintain safe, reliable, environmentally responsible operations while supporting necessary capital and operational investments.

As always, we remain mindful about affordability pressures and we continue to focus on cost management and on strengthening support for income-eligible customers.

In response to the questions received from the committee, for providing clarity around major cost drivers and long-term financial assumptions, strengthening the connection between planned capital investments and anticipated reliability improvements, and expanding details on performance metrics and accountability.

We will also highlight more explicitly how community and customer feedback shaped our proposed investments.

We look forward to supporting the Council's continued review and ensuring our long-term direction and transparency is financially sound.

I'll turn it over to Kirstie Granger to present an updated slide deck.

We also have Andy Strong, Siobhan Doherty and Angela Bertrand here to answer questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rob.

Angela, why don't we move on to the next slide.

Great.

All right, so this was a slide we presented at our last meeting.

To review, the rate ordinance proposes to increase rates by 9.5% for 2027 and again in 2028. For residential customers, this translates to about $10 a month for an average used customer.

We received some questions from council relating to the non-residential rates, and so we're going to dig into some of those details first.

Moving to the blue section of the table, so most businesses are served under general service rate classes which are broken into categories based on the size of the business or the size of their business energy use.

The rate increases for general service vary a little bit from the 9.5 average.

and so to get into a little bit on what causes this foundationally.

Christy, can I stop you for one second?

I'm looking at my printout of your PowerPoint.

We have the one from June 17th and then I have the one that's dated July 1st and my page three is not your page three.

My page three in the new printout starts with rate ordinance, not cost allocation and rate design.

Are you using the old one from June 17th?

Thank you, council member.

So when I was reviewing this deck, slide three felt redundant because it said all the same things as slide two.

So I thought I would save us all some time by just deleting it.

and instead I'm confusing everyone it's it was the same information on slide two that breaks down what the four parts of the rate ordinance are okay good I just want to make sure I had the right thank you for checking in okay great you did everything else is the same I just it's all right great just state for the record council member Rivera has just joined us welcome

Thank you.

Go ahead, Kristi.

Thank you.

All right.

So a little bit about rate making.

It's a reminder for everyone listening.

City Light is a not-for-profit public utility.

So the way we set rates is that we determine how much revenue we project we need to operate the utility.

And then each rate class is assigned a share of the revenue that we need to collect.

And this is based on an analysis of the cost to serve the customers in that rate class.

and cost of service includes the cost of the electricity a customer consumes, as well as the cost it takes to delivery, to deliver the electricity to the customer, and then also other things like billing, metering, and customer service.

I should note, Councilman Rivera, this is page nine, even though she says three, you know, okay.

Yeah, thank you.

Go ahead, we can bounce back and forth, but I just want, because I think the viewing public has the original that you, that we posted, okay.

Okay, thank you.

So for the cost of electricity, we want everybody to know that the cost of the electricity that you consume for any customer, be it a resident or a small business or a big business, the price for the electricity is the same, but there is a lot of variation in the cost of delivery.

and there's also variation in load profiles and the cost to serve those load profiles and this is what's driving the high demand rate increase to be lower than average.

So the high demand rate class only has 11 customers in it and a good number of those customers are industrial and industrial loads tend to be more flat and constant than a typical load which will have a lot of peaks and valleys that vary by season, time of day and with weather.

So the high demand customers' seasonal consumption patterns lowered their assigned energy cost relative to the other general service customers and that's why their rate increase is lower than average for this biennium.

That was the first question, hopefully.

We're starting out with the really technical stuff.

So that's the general service.

We also got a question about the downtown network.

So this is the green part of the table.

The downtown network is a rate class for medium and large businesses that are located in the downtown core.

So there's two kinds of electric service that Seattle City Light provides.

There's radio service and network.

Most of us have radio service and this is where every customer is fed with one feeder.

In network service the customer is getting electricity from two or more feeders and so what this means is that if one of them fails for any reason there's a backup and that customer's power stays on.

So this means that in the downtown network those customers have a super reliable service that we would describe as like a premium compared to what most of us have.

The cost of this service is higher and downtown network customers pay rates that are on average about 20% higher than the general service rates.

Now for 2027 and 2028 the downtown network increases you'll see on the table are a little bit lower than average and this is again due to cost of service so within the downtown network area when we back we went back and reviewed our financial records for the cost to serve the downtown network what we saw is that the increase in cost for maintenance and capital investment within the network wasn't rising as quickly as it was for other parts of the service territory.

And that's why those rates are increasing less quickly than for other customers.

But I want to emphasize that overall downtown network rates are still higher than everyone else's.

Are you done with Downtown Network?

I am.

Okay, we have a question, but let me just say this.

So, for those of you watching, the PowerPoint says three, but what was posted online is page nine, and Councilman Rivera has a question about Downtown Network, correct?

Thank you, yes.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Kirsty.

I will say, I know that this is technical, it's very technical, but for the average person, watching and looking at this slide, you know, it does look like we're charging our residential customers more than our downtown network customers.

And so I know you just finished explaining this, but do you mind taking another shot at or another pass at explaining why that is?

Because then I heard you say, actually, downtown network pays more, but it's not what it's shown here.

So I just want to make sure I understand what you were explaining.

Thank you.

I'll give it another shot.

And I acknowledge this is super technical stuff.

So this table shows rate increases.

And we're talking about how the rates are increasing.

The rates that the customers are paying also are different.

So the downtown network rates are higher than general service rates and other rates.

The increases are a little bit lower for these two years because of how the cost of service has changed over the last two years.

Does that help?

Yes.

Are you saying that because, for instance, we know downtown there's more vacancy and so maybe they're not consuming as much.

Is that why?

When you say they're still paying more downtown, but the rates don't look like they're paying more.

Yeah.

I mean, if you pull up like our rate schedules, if you were to look at the per kilowatt hour rates for downtown network, the number will be bigger.

I don't think it is due to vacancies.

It's more to do with the downtown core is really dense and it's all underground.

And so the work that we do on that system is really different than the work that we're doing out in neighborhoods that are served by poles and wires.

And we track those costs separately than we do for the rest of the system.

Oh, OK.

Yeah, I just don't know.

From this slide, it looks like we're charging our residential customers more than our commercial customers.

And I guess that's what I'm trying to get to.

And I I'm sorry, I'm not I don't have clarity on that.

Either that's true or it's not.

And if it's not true, then then the slide is misleading.

We are increasing residential rates by 9.5%.

And for the commercial customers, the rate increases vary from mid 7% to a little bit higher, I think, in some cases.

This table is rate increases.

So two things.

Let me go to, if you don't mind, Council Member Kettle, let me go to Eric McConaughey, who can answer some of your questions, Council Member Rivera, and then we'll go to Council Member Kettle.

Eric?

Hello, council members.

I'm Eric McConaughey, the council's central staff.

I just wanted to underline what Kirstie was pointing out, that what we see on this table are rate increases to the change from what's charged now by City Light to what will be charged in the future, the actual change in the rates for each of these kinds of customers.

And each customer has their own rate class.

So based on the cost to service each one of these kinds of customers, City Light has figured out, excuse me, how much more money per kilowatt those particular customers should pay in the future, and they vary.

The actual amount of money being paid per kilowatt varies among these customers, and the downtown network customers actually pay more because they have a premium service.

So this is just kind of repeating, maybe in a slightly different order what Kiersey said, but trying to underline that.

I hope that's helpful.

Right, and my understanding is it's because we have all these different classes, you know, general, downtown, business, and soon to be a data system.

This is the increase, but they're already paying more baseline, correct?

Downtown network is already paying more than your general service.

Right.

Yes.

Yeah, and that's because by statute, we created classes to make downtown streetlights, big business, and now data centers to pay more.

Yeah, I mean, the downtown, if you think about what it looks like, you know, everything is underground, everything is redundant.

It's a different system that costs more to install than in other parts of the city.

So we charge more for that.

Yes, I think in general, downtown pays more.

It's just their increase is not going to go as high.

but in general they're paying more per hour than the residential customers.

So don't go by the fact that they, it looks like their rate, not it doesn't look like, their rate increases less than the residential but they pay more per hour for their electricity than the residential folks do.

Correct.

So it's not that we're giving the downtown core, the commercial, a break, more of a break.

They're paying more.

Exactly.

Thank you, overall.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Rivera.

Councillor Kettle.

I don't see you on my...

Thank you, Chair.

I was just going to note, yes, for 27-28, the 7% and 8% is on a higher number other than the 9.5% for the general service.

And it's highlighted in there the point that the premium service carries a higher rate.

Downtown network customers pay rates that are 20% higher than other customers.

And to the point that was noted in terms of maintenance and the like, the maintenance expenses and capital investments for network systems have risen at a lower rate than those for non-network areas, which is something in terms of the above ground point as opposed to the underground point, which is really important.

I also wanted to speak up too because the downtown piece serves as like a heart for so many areas for the city and businesses and business classes too.

So for example, we're at Tech City and you mentioned data centers, but even more sensitive is not just the tech, but biotech.

So we have a growing biotech here in Seattle, trying to catch up to Boston and San Diego.

And as you can imagine, the labs and the like, they're really dependent on stable power and so having this downtown network is vital for classes of business like the biotech world and something that I've seen in my bounce around at various companies and getting briefings and presentations and walkabouts in their area.

I just wanted to emphasize that point and also introduce because I think a lot of people don't realize, you know, biotech is a very big in Seattle, but it's also very sensitive to electrical power.

So I just wanted to throw that in.

Thank you, Chair.

Anything else you want to throw in?

You good?

No.

All right.

I'm always willing to do another first pitch, but no, I have nothing else to throw in.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Kirsty.

We're tracking along here with your PowerPoint.

This is great.

Just tell us which page.

We're going to see one more topic on this one.

So we also got a question about streetlight rates.

Yep.

So the streetlight rate increase is much higher than average, and this has to do with higher costs associated with maintaining streetlights.

We received a question on what capital projects are baked into that, and then how are we going to control future costs?

I think this might be a West Seattle Bridge related question.

Councillor Osaka had five questions, so I hope you answered all of them.

I think we answered all the questions.

So we could do a whole separate briefing on streetlights, but there are some specific capital improvements planned.

There's one I think in North Seattle between Meridian and Fifth Avenue, not West Seattle.

We're also doing some upgrades to our monitoring technology because we know that one of the challenges is in monitoring when the outages go out and being able to address them quickly, so doing some work there.

And then also there's some planned work on highway under deck lighting, which is going to contribute to improve public safety as well.

But we want to stress that the major driver in street light rates isn't so much capital projects as it is maintenance and replacing things that are getting broken and vandalized.

And that that's really going to be key for controlling our future costs is figuring out how we can mitigate wire theft.

This is going to be critical.

I mean, we're also going to do all the work we can around prioritization and being responsive to outages, streamlining our operations.

but if we can't stop people from vandalizing the streetlights, this is going to be very, very difficult.

So we're looking at strategies to protect the wire with theft-resistant enclosures.

We're looking at potentially, are there places where we can use cheaper, like aluminum-based parts instead of copper to make them less attractive?

And then we're also working with I think we're looking at possibilities, what we can do to also just make theft less attractive in resale of scrap metal.

That's a bit more on streetlights.

Okay.

Okay?

Mm-hmm.

Keep going.

All right.

So I did reorder the slides because I really wanted to tackle that first because I felt like that was going to be the media subject.

This is not our number four.

I know.

I'm sorry.

It's somewhere in there.

So this is just a slide on bill impacts for small and medium businesses.

So we got a question, you know, have we done some analysis on how these increases will affect small and medium customers?

So these are some example businesses and you know there's a great variety in businesses but for example a small office you know they might have a bill that's about $200 and they would see an increase of like 16 and then we have some larger examples.

The apartment complex would be like the common area of a big apartment complex.

They have a higher bill and they might see increases in a couple thousand dollar range.

And we recognize that for businesses, electricity is just one cost in the context of a lot of higher operating costs.

And we're going to talk a little bit later about opportunities for savings and some other things related to businesses.

Okay, so that's your page four, which is our page 11, but go ahead.

Okay, and so now we're gonna talk a little bit about rate increases.

Are we on the same page?

Oh good.

We might be, we'll see.

Okay, this is an adventure, like one of those choose your own adventure books where we switch around.

This is a review from the last meeting.

We walked everyone through five key factors driving the need for higher rates.

And we got a Follow-up question on cost drivers and digging a little bit more into examples of deferred maintenance and what's going on in some areas.

So consumption or the rising demand for electricity is a big factor.

City Lights load is projected to grow about 20%.

our peak load and we know that we're going to need to procure new power and transmission resources, we're going to need to upgrade transformers, we're going to need to do work on our infrastructure to expand system capacity.

And all together, these investments in new power supply, transmission, as well as leaning into technology and demand side solutions with our customers is contributing about one third of the rate increase.

Another aspect is generation.

So part of the rate increase is coming from costs associated with the new Skagit license, which is going to total $4 billion over the next three decades.

And then there's a couple of key civil infrastructure projects that we have planned in our strategic plan.

At the Skagit, there's Gorge powerhouse hydroelectric unit rebuilds, and these are a big priority.

And then two civil infrastructure projects, one at Gorge, which is a seismic project that relates to the superstructure, which is going to protect it from potential earthquakes.

as well as work on the Four Bay Bridge which is like a bridge at Boundary but it's in bad shape right now and we can't drive heavy equipment on it and so there's a big project to improve that as well.

So we are on five, and last week, two weeks ago, it was page 12, because I'm looking at my old notes from your last PowerPoint.

Right.

But we are on five now, so we're on 12. And what number are you on here, aging grid or technology?

We're just talking about cost drivers and deferred maintenance in the areas of consumption, generation, transmission, and distribution.

Okay.

Did you talk about technology and inflation yet?

Because I'm not really following where you're at.

Oh, sorry.

No, that's great.

Technology is all, okay, so talk about power supply costs, talk about aging grid, which is going to include both infrastructure, like the distribution infrastructure, as well as the generation infrastructure and some pretty big projects out at Skagit and Boundary Dams.

Right, I got that down here too.

Okay.

So we're good there.

We're going to need to invest in technology and I think we've got a question coming up about how that's going to help us manage peaks and avoid infrastructure expansions.

We talked a little bit about the last meeting about DERMs as well which is going to be a really important technology investment that's going to help us have like a two-way power grid where if customers want to generate their own power or use power that the grid can accommodate the power flowing both ways.

Right, that's when we were talking about Pinehurst and Queen Anne and outages.

Exactly.

And this time I noticed you updated your PowerPoint to say technology deficit, whereas last time it was just technology and you were talking about texting customers.

That's right.

Yeah, we do.

We are behind.

I mean, this is exciting technology, but we also want to acknowledge that compared to a lot of utilities around the country, we're actually a little bit behind in this space.

Well, we do get texts from you guys when stuff, when power goes out.

Don't we both?

Yeah, we get texts us when power goes out.

Oh, it's because I'm the chair?

Oh, never mind.

Sorry.

Well, Council Member Strauss gets them.

I don't know that that's coming from technology.

I think that's coming from people.

No, it's coming from Shell City Light.

Oh, no, but I mean, we aren't broadly texting everybody.

I think that's coming from somebody here to somebody there.

Yeah, okay.

But yeah, I think that for, if anybody is a Puget Sound Energy customer, like I think that they have auto texts, like when the power goes out, it's like, hey, we know your power's out and we estimate that it's coming back on in this many hours.

And that's something that we don't have the capability to do yet.

Okay, so are you going to go into inflation now?

Because I remember you talked about it not keeping pace and the 40% and all that other stuff.

Okay, let's do that.

That's, no, that's exactly, you got it, exactly it, is that inflation is a big factor.

And, you know, so as we're talking about all of these other things, inflation's accounting for about 40% of the rate increases when you combine it with the liquidity and taxes and everything else that goes along with being a bigger operation.

All right.

Okay, so if we go to six, are we on the same page on six?

No, we're not.

Okay.

Hold on, let us...

Okay, we're on page four.

You and I, Councilman Rivera, our team, we have four.

Kirstie has six, but it's only four.

Yeah, we were trying to use some of the same visuals while we talk about some of the questions that we received from you all.

And so, yeah, just figuring out how to walk through them in a way where it didn't feel like we were skipping all over the place.

It's okay, now I'm regretting asking for page numbers because what I really meant was page numbers that actually go with the PowerPoint.

Yes, I get that.

You're lucky I'm a nerd and I went back and looked at the old presentation and I cross-referenced them, but that's okay.

We're good.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

So I don't know who asked this question, but it's a great one, which was what would it take for rates to increase at lower rates in the future?

Right.

Which is absolutely.

And so, you know, I just want to acknowledge that there is a lot of uncertainty in the future.

and I cannot stress how that Seattle City Light is in a place and an electric utility in general.

We're in a place where it's really hard to know what's going to happen in the next two years and very hard in the next six.

where we are feeling, as we were just talking about, we're feeling the impacts of inflation and we don't know where the future's going to go with the prices of raw materials, with taxes, trade situation with Canada.

A lot of our materials come from the north.

So where those prices for those materials will go is going to be a big factor in where rates will need to be.

Weather is another one.

Good hydro conditions help us.

Mild weather helps us keep our costs of service low.

On the flip side, extreme weather events and wildfires are big financial risks for us.

Something else that's going on right now is that wholesale markets are evolving and we have some financial exposure there.

If it goes well, if these new regional markets turn out to be beneficial and contribute to better regional coordination, this could help us keep costs low.

And then finally, I think the single biggest uncertainty that's going to impact whether rates need to be on the higher or low side really has to do with how the demand for electricity is going to grow.

This relates to the data centers, it relates to some major electrification projects that are coming down the pike.

So as we have these big new commercial loads come on, it's hard to know exactly when they're coming and in some cases it's hard to know exactly where in our service territory they're going to be.

So, you know, if these loads materialize in a way where we can serve them efficiently, it could be beneficial for everyone, but it could also go the other way.

And so load growth is really the single biggest driver, I think, in where we're going to land with respect to rates having to go higher or lower.

Okay.

So we are on page

The next thing we were hoping to talk about is managing peaks and demand.

Great.

So you're page seven, we're on page eight.

Go ahead.

Perfect.

Okay.

So we got a question about what plans does City Light have for managing peak demand issues?

which is a great question.

We talked about how our peak load is expected to grow by 20% and that's going to be driving a lot of these investments in power, transmission and infrastructure.

So what can we do to mitigate those peaks?

and we've got a little graph on here that illustrates what City Lights load looks like on a really cold winter day.

This happens to be January 12th, 2024. I guess that was a cold day.

And so this is a 24 hour chart and the orange line shows our system load.

and so it creeps up in the morning and then it peaks in the late afternoon, evening.

And that little peak there, that's the part that stresses our system and that's where the opportunity is to shave our load and keep our costs lower.

I like this light.

We do have a summer peak as well, but it is not as acute as our winter peak.

Seattle is a winter peaking utility, and so that's really what we're focused on when we're thinking about reliability and preventing blackouts and that sort of thing is that winter peak.

So our number one strategy is the one that we've been doing for a hundred years, which is to leverage our hydro flexibility.

The Skagit project is super important, the storage that we have behind Ross Dam.

And then with our new Bonneville contract that's starting in October of 2028, we are also going to gain some flexibility from that contract because we're going to go with a different product and that's also going to help us flex to meet peak demand.

Also, as we're out looking for those new resources to serve the future, we're going to be keeping in mind their ability to help meet these peaks and some resources might be better suited for that than others.

Okay, so I already know that your page 8 is different than ours.

Nope.

Well, but then the other part is the demand response.

And so just to say that, you know, supply side is how we've done it in the past.

In the future, City Light's also going to have to lean into working with our customers to shave our peaks.

So this is going to be time of use rates, which are now available as an option to anyone who would like to enroll.

We're working with some large industrial customers to do curtailment, which means that if we're in a peak event, we could ask them to curtail their use.

And as a reminder, in our new data center rate, we're going to require data centers to curtail, so that we're going to make them help us with these peaks.

Hey, Kirstie, before you go into DERMS, are you done with?

Yep.

Okay, before you go there, Councillor Kettle had his hands up.

And you know what, Councillor Kettle, when you put your hand up, it blends into your bookcase.

That's why I can't see it.

I thought it went down again.

I was just going to, Chair, thank you for, I guess, recognizing me.

I was just going to, you know, working with the community, like on this side, this case, the industrial is key.

I just had a great tour of the Nucor steel plant.

And, you know, I know they're very large, the largest, you know and and they're willing to work and you know that that positive engagement from the community back with City Light you know in this case the business community and large industrial community is really what's needed you know this partnership uh to work and these these loads because you know we are changing I know we're a winter but you know with More and more electrification, more and more AC units, we're going to be adjusting as well.

And I just wanted to give a shout out to that customer demand response effort that's ongoing.

Yeah, we've done that new core tour.

It's pretty fun.

I think we've all done it.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Kristi.

Oh, and then finally DERMS, which again comes back to the technology, and we talked about that earlier, that this is important for demand response as well.

So that's a few of our strategies that we're going to be leaning into to work on managing our peaks.

Okay.

Okay.

We're cautiously waiting for eight.

Okay.

So this is your eight.

Is this a new one for us?

Is this six?

That was what I was wondering.

This is.

We were doing a lot of this right before.

Your eight are six.

It's like bingo.

Okay.

Wait.

Okay.

Wait, wait, hold up.

Council Member Saka, did you want to ask your question now, sir?

Yes.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, if I may.

All right.

Well, I appreciate the presentation so far.

First off, shout out to Nucor Steel right here in West Seattle, a great industrial customer, and I appreciate the partnership with the City Light team and customers like Nucor across the city.

So they do very important work.

Just want to dig in a little more on to what was noted, a stat was noted earlier a moment ago about the 40% increase sort of being driven by inflation and affordability is obviously top of mind for a lot of our constituents, residents and customers of City Light here.

We'll have to better understand why that figure is so significant.

The 40% figure tied to inflation is so significant compared to other drivers of inflation.

Oh, yeah, and I hope that everybody caught- I'm not saying inflation went up by 40%, I'm saying inflation is accounting for 40% of the rate increase, so 40% of the 9.5, if that makes sense?

But that's- is that the one- and then inflation is going up significantly.

I just wanted to make sure which number, is that the number you were referring to, Councilmember?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You said it, but you didn't put it in your slide last week or this week, but you said it last time, 40% for inflation.

Okay.

It accounts for that.

And it is significant.

Do you have a question about what's driving that, like, to break it down?

No, no.

All good.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I'm digging into some of your responses to some of your written questions, so all good for now.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you for your questions, too, Council Member Saka.

You submitted five, so thank you for that.

Very diligent, I suppose.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, you are.

I like that about you.

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

Go ahead, Kirstie.

What page are we on?

We're on eight.

Your eight are six.

Talk a little bit about underground infrastructure.

Ooh, you're gonna get a lot of ones about these.

Councilmember Kettle's gonna come in.

This might, again, it is a factor in rates.

We got some questions about it and it's possible that this would be a separate briefing.

So there is significant investment in infrastructure baked into our rate proposal.

We know that we have work to do around replacing direct varied underground cable.

We have approximately 300 miles of failing cable out there that's causing outages in some neighborhoods and the replacement cost for that underground cable will be very significant.

We are aware that there's a lot of questions related to cost and equity around direct buried underground lines and the question that we got was around how are we prioritizing these and balancing the need to replace these lines based on equity and will the cost of replacing these lines affect residential rates?

Where did you come up with $2 billion?

If you don't have an answer.

As you can see in the photo, when we're doing underground...

Hello, Andy.

Nice to you to jump in and just kind of come on in there, but okay.

Yeah, I wanted to come in because this is a tough question, and I suppose I've got the most pertinent information on it.

Costs for direct buried underground cabling program is about $6.3 million of linear mile, and you can see why.

This is a typical photo in a typical neighborhood of what it would be like to do this type of construction and infrastructure replacement.

So...

Wait, you said...

Andy, hold up.

You said it's 6.3 million?

That's what you said.

And you're talking about Queen Anne?

Talking about neighborhoods in general.

Queen Anne might even come in more than this because of the complexity of the underground infrastructure there.

Okay, I need you to...

Hey, Andy, I need you either to enunciate a little bit better or move your mic in a little bit more because you're kind of cutting out.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, so we asked about the $2 billion.

You explained it.

Right.

Andy, you talked a little bit about the direct barrier to cover priorities.

I'm reading Andy's answer now, so please feel free to jump in and do your own answer.

Do you need more on the direct barrier underground cable or should I continue on the other projects?

I think you've answered my question.

Oh great, and I think that the question that we got in the written responses were how do you prioritize it?

And so, you know, we're looking at are there critical services located in those areas like hospitals, schools, you know, and we're also monitoring the frequency and the duration of the outages, but we acknowledge that Some prioritization is important, but really what we know is that all of the directory cable, regardless of the location, needs to be replaced.

The near-term impacts will be modest because it's going to take us some time to ramp up this effort but there will be significant rate impacts and there are a lot of questions about how we assign the cost, how we allocate the cost of this very expensive direct buried cable replacement amongst rate payers and the mayor has asked City Light to to analyze some options for how equitably and progressively we might allocate these costs.

And we plan to do that work later this year and bring back some options and recommendations in Q3 and Q4 of this year.

Right, that was question number six that Councilmember Lynn asked of you.

You read right from it.

So that's, yeah.

So that was the question he asked about the equity issue and the direct barrier replacement priority based on the number of critical services.

Okay, I just got it.

What?

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

Just to confirm, because I've had neighborhoods in the D4 with underground cables that have had these power outages, my understanding, so this is more confirmation, Andy and Kirstie, is when you're replacing this, when you say 300 miles of failing cable needs to be replaced, you are replacing them in a fashion where they're easier to locate where the outage is stemming from and to replace is my understanding from conversations with City Light earlier last year at some time.

Because now the way that it's the replacement is being laid, there'll be some I'm calling it a box.

It's not called a box.

It's called a terminal or something.

So I'll just say that then moving once these are replaced, moving forward, it'll be easier to locate where the source of the outages and be able to replace it or address it, correct?

Very much so.

With direct barrier underground cable, we lack the ability to be able to specifically locate the issue of the outage and then be able to repair it other than directly dig into the sidewalk, the street, or perhaps a right-of-way where the cable is buried now.

In the future we'll be able to open a vault, pull out the bad section of cable, that we can replace it very quickly, the whole length, and be much more secure in knowing that we've found the issue and have fixed it permanently.

Thank you, Andy.

Are you done?

No, thank you, Andy.

I think I called it a terminal, but it's a vault.

Correct.

But I know what you're saying.

Thank you.

Thank you, Andy.

Go ahead, Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

So this is very important for the district and for the city, because as you're hearing, this is all over the city.

This is not just one area.

There's been a few areas that have already been addressed and they're kind of dispersed.

And as you're hearing D4, I know Pinehurst D5 is severely impacted too so this is a citywide issue and I think we need to do this but it's also a cautionary tale in the sense that this should have been started 15 years ago and if it was then you know these costs would be a lot lower you know the punting down the road philosophy of governance is being shown here to be a major mistake in costing us in this case around $2 billion this could have been initiated again a decade and a half ago but because it wasn't now we have to and here we are and it's a cautionary tale and I'm just I'm just stating that out loud and for the record thank you thanks chair all right Kirstie do you want to keep walking us through this

Yeah, I mean, well, there weren't any questions specifically on these, but other aspects of investing in infrastructure include poles, transformers, so the overhead infrastructure.

Talked a little bit about investment up at the Skagit and Boundary dams.

And then wildfire mitigation is another thing that we're thinking a lot about.

City Light does have transmission lines that run through forested areas and wildfires are becoming more common and there have been some electric utilities for whom this has been a very serious issue so we want to make sure that we're being proactive about this very real enterprise risk.

All right.

So page nine is page seven.

So your page nine is our page seven.

Okay.

All right.

And so we got a question that's sort of tangentially related to rates, which has to do with undergrounding of lines for, don't go anywhere, Andy, undergrounding of lines for developments with four to six units or more.

And how does this affect rates for residential customers or for developers?

So we acknowledge that building anything in an already dense city is challenging, and there's a lot of multifamily development going on.

City Light has a policy where we require the service connection, which goes from the pole or whatever to the building, or we call it a service drop sometimes, to be underground if it's going to be a fourplex to sixplex.

and this is for safety reasons.

A standard utility pole can't handle the weight of the conductor that you need to serve four to six households.

And we have done our research and we haven't found a practical engineering solution to avoid this.

It is costly.

As we just talked about on the last slide, anytime that you're working underground, it is going to be costly.

And so we understand that this is a significant cost for developers.

and at the same time City Light's overarching philosophy is that we are going to develop policies and fees where developers must pay their fair share of the cost of the development because the only other option would be to pass those costs to residents and businesses.

and so we are setting up all of our fees for service connections with the goal of having the developer pay the full cost of that private development.

Right, that is Paige.

That's question seven from Council Member Lynn.

Yes.

Okay.

I should have just followed the questions with your PowerPoint.

I see how it's flowing now.

I did not realize that, but go ahead.

Where are we at now?

Right.

All right.

Okay.

So the next question, I think we're on to questions 12 and 13. Okay.

Wait, hold up.

Cause we got a different one.

You, this is your page.

Yeah.

What, what is that?

Ours is 13. Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Wait, wait, wait.

Okay.

Now we are on page 13, you're on your page 10. Are we good?

Okay, everybody's good.

Okay, and then we're on question 12, which is, how is City Light communicating these changes to residential and business customers?

Oh, there it is, Councillor Rusaka's question.

Good question.

Okay, this is fun.

We weren't told who asked the questions, and so they were all blinded for us, so now we get to match them up.

So, I want to stress, our goal here is full transparency.

Our strategic plan has a big appendix and we've been communicating broadly to customers over the past two years.

You know, we haven't had a specific rate increase, but our leadership has been talking openly about the need for significant rate increases in the news, in regional forums, with community organizations.

And as we move towards the rates taking effect on January 1, we want to use every channel that we have at our disposal.

This includes customer newsletters, online channels, news outlets to get the word out about these upcoming increases because we anticipate that they're going to affect every resident and every business.

And so, you know, as we need to raise rates, we want to bring along customers on this process.

We want everyone to be able to access the electricity, but at the same time, we can't take it for granted because it really does have a real price for our planet.

And brings us to question 13, what if any new or expanded programs will help customers reduce consumption to offset higher rates?

That's perfect.

As we talk about the need for higher rates, we absolutely want to be connecting customers with opportunities for savings.

We have a new online platform called Energy Insights that uses your meter data to give you ideas for how you can save on your bills.

Time of use rates might be a good option if you have an electric vehicle or you have a way that you can shift some of your electricity use to nighttime.

This is a way that you could save on your bills and this is also open to businesses.

There are a lot of rebates available for efficiency investments.

And then we also have a new one for multifamily homes as well.

And so we encourage you to check out our website.

We've got a lot of information there on opportunities to save.

That was Council Member Saka's question too, number 13. Council Member Saka's just killing it over here.

All right.

So you are on year 11 and what page is ours, Paul?

rates and other, oh, 12. Okay.

So we have page 12 in front of us and you have page 11 on the screen.

Okay.

Okay.

You know, and this isn't in response to any particular question, but we didn't get a chance to talk about this last year.

And so we were thinking about businesses and how our rate increases are going to impact them.

We just wanted to show that City Light does still provide good value compared to a lot of major cities across the country.

And what this means for businesses is that even with higher rates, Seattle does still provide very competitive energy costs when compared to other places that a business might locate.

and this really reflects the value of public power as well as investments that past Seattle leaders have made.

So, you know, past Seattle leaders have kicked the can down the road in some cases, Council Member.

And in other cases, we have leaned into some investments that we are benefiting from today, which gives us pretty good energy rates.

Yeah, this is a great map because I think this question came up, like how do we rate with other cities with our hydro?

non-carbon energy, fuel, whatever we are doing, green energy, right?

Yes.

So fuel, reducing our carbon footprint, all that good stuff.

All right.

Yeah.

So, you know, Seattle should be proud.

We are, you know, net zero.

We are green and relatively affordable.

Okay.

So, okay.

And that's, and this is just our closing slide.

This again, but 14, 14. That we also have programs to help residents.

We have a utility discount program.

We're going to be expanding the eligibility, so we encourage everyone to, if they are struggling with their electric bills, to check if they qualify.

For customers who are behind on their bills, we have programs and can help you access federal or state funds, as well as budget billing programs, which help keep a customer's bill stable month to month.

Yeah, thank you for this.

We went through this when Councilmember Strauss was here on the UDP and lowering the AMI.

Exactly.

Well done.

Good job.

Thank you for this slide.

And that brings us to the ends of our slides.

And so we'd be happy to answer any other questions that you have.

And we thank you for your time today.

Thank you, Kirstie.

Thank you, Andy.

I'm looking at my screen here and I do not see, I think, Oh, no.

Here we go.

Councillor Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

I just really quickly wanted to say thank you for the questions response document because this is going to help me related to direct very cable and some of the other challenges issues that reside in my district.

So I just wanted to give a quick shout out.

and I should say with the moving slides, it kept us on our toes at the end of the day, all of us.

And so in a way, not to share too much, not seen before.

So thank you.

Well, you know, of the 13 questions, five of them came from Councilmember Saka and three came from Councilmember Lynn.

and we had one from Council Member Strauss and we also had a question from Council Member Strauss and Lynn.

But my point is, we also had them from Eric McConaughey and Paul, Policy Paul, who on the floor were getting back feedback from the last community meeting we had.

So I would say that one, two, three, the first three questions were a conglomerate of folks in questions that were raised and then the rest were all either committee members or other council members who are watching and had questions.

And so thank you Councillor Kettle for your right.

We were up here, me and council member Rivera playing PowerPoint bingo.

But I think we got it all.

We got all the pictures, we got the slides, we got it right.

So thank you Seattle City Light.

And so with that, if there aren't any more questions, is there anything else for my colleagues?

Okay, I'm not seeing anything, so are we okay to go to a vote?

All right, I think we are.

Okay, so I'm gonna go ahead and move that the committee recommends passage of resolution 32210. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Any further comments?

I'm not seeing any.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Saka.

Councilmember Rivera?

Aye.

Vice Chair Kettle?

Aye.

Chair Juarez?

Aye.

Chair, there are four votes in favor and zero opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

Resolution 32210 will be sent to the July 7th full city council meeting.

Okay, let's move on to, since we did two and three together, let's move on to item three, which will require a vote.

Not require, but I'm going to ask for one.

Will the clerk please read item three into the record?

Agenda Item 3, Council Bill 121241, an ordinance relating to the City Light Department authorizing the department to enter into long-term agreements for the acquisition of electric power.

There will be a briefing, discussion, and vote.

Presenters are Interim GM and CEO Rob Santoff and Siobhan Dodri from Seattle City Light and Eric McConaughey.

All right, so we have, we have a, and I'm hoping now that this PowerPoint matches our PowerPoint.

It's eight pages and we, looks like we have some new folks and I'll let you introduce yourself in a moment, but let me just review that.

We have a PowerPoint and also we got the summary and fiscal note by Jeff Wolf.

Is Jeff on the call?

No?

Is he?

Nope.

Okay, well, I did learn from the summary and fiscal note that 240 months equals 20 years.

So with that, I'm going to let Seattle City Light take it from here.

Thank you, Chair Juarez.

Thank you, committee members.

I'm Rob Zantoff, intern general manager and CEO of Seattle City Light.

I appreciate the opportunity to present the power purchase agreement ordinance today.

City Light's 2026 Integrated Resources Plan, adopted by City Council, shows electricity demand growing rapidly over the next several years.

The rapid growth is driven mostly by vehicle and building electrification.

This requires City Light to acquire more than 1700 megawatts of new energy resources in the next decade.

The renewable energy market is extremely competitive.

Utilities and large technology companies are moving quickly to secure long-term clean energy projects.

often before they are built, which limits the availability and raises the prices.

Under the current Seattle Municipal Code, City-Like can negotiate and sign contracts for up to 60 months without explicit approval from City Council.

That restriction makes it difficult to secure long-term cost-effective renewable power in today's highly competitive market.

This ordinance This ordinance updates the Seattle Municipal Code to allow City Light flexibility to negotiate and sign agreements for up to 240 months of renewable energy, transmission, attributes, and ancillary services needed to meet City Light's growing electrical load.

You will hear from Siobhan Doherty, City Light's Power Supply Officer, to present our request for expanded authority to strengthen our negotiation position and reduce dependency on volatile short-term market purchases.

Thank you, Siobhan.

Great.

Thank you, Rob.

Good afternoon, Chair Juarez and committee members.

Thank you for the opportunity to present today.

As Rob mentioned, we're requesting approval to provide City Light with the authority to meet our long-term planning needs by executing PAR purchase agreements up to a term of 240 months.

Which is?

20 years.

20 years because Amazon and other folks keep outbidding us, correct?

Yeah, yeah.

So even though we're not, we have a data center moratorium, even though we have our data center load policy, we're going to be competing with technology and data center companies as well as other utilities for resources.

We'll wait for that exciting info on page six.

Okay.

Yes.

Okay.

These are all orders you guys have.

I didn't.

Okay, great.

Go ahead, Siobhan.

Every two years, City Light prepares what's called an integrated resource plan or an IRP.

And the IRP looks out for 20 years and looks at what is our load forecast and what resources are we going to need to meet that load forecast.

So this slide is showing the load forecast, how much energy use we think we're going to need out through the next 20 years.

And this is what we used in our 2026 IRP, which was just passed by council recently.

We're starting to experience increasing energy demand and we're forecasting that this is going to continue.

This is related both to economic growth as well as transportation and building electrification.

This chart is showing both our actual historical load as well as our forecast load.

On the horizontal axis we have years and then the vertical axis is average megawatts for average annual energy and then megawatts for peak energy.

The solid lines on the left are historical actual loads, and then the dotted lines are the forecasted load.

The lower line shows our annual average loads.

We take up how much we used across the entire year and divide it by the number of hours in the year.

Historically, our load has been relatively flat.

We've done aggressive investments in energy efficiency so that we've kept that load flat, even as we've seen significant growth throughout Seattle.

The upper line is our annual peak load.

This is during each year, what is the highest usage of energy in any one hour.

And we are starting to see this increasing.

In December 2022, we reached the highest peak load that we'd seen in 20 years.

And then in January 2024, just a little over a year later, we saw that peak load 100 megawatts greater.

This is being driven by volatile winter weather events.

Our load forecast is showing a steady increase.

That's that lower dotted line.

The upper dotted line is that peak load increase, and we're seeing that growing faster.

The arrows on the right side are showing what is driving that.

So, new housing, transportation, electrification, as well as building electrification.

Data centers are providing a small amount of that, but it's not a significant driver of this load forecast.

and then we're also showing what's decreasing, so rooftop solar, energy efficiency, decrease our load.

With growing loads, we're going to need new resources.

This is showing what the integrated resource plan showed that we're going to need for new generating resources over the next 20 years.

This is showing average generation from both our current resource mix as well as new resources.

Along the horizontal axis we've got the years that we studied and then along the vertical axis we have average megawatts.

This is how much each resource is producing.

The darker blue at the bottom is our Bonneville Power Administration contract.

The orange represents our current owned hydro resources from the Skagit boundary as well as our small hydro.

And then the light blue is other existing contracts.

when we look to 2030 and beyond, we see growing yellow, gray, and green parts of these bars.

I like this chart.

The yellow is showing customer-side resources, such as demand response, commercial solar, residential solar.

The gray represents new wind, and then the green represents new utility-scale solar resources.

the black line shows our average load.

This is the same line from the previous page.

We're showing our average load increasing as we need more.

We can see here each of these bars exceeds our load.

That's because this is our average load, whereas we need to meet peak load and load changes based on seasonal variations, daily variations, as well as when we have volatile weather events.

And we need to make sure we have enough resources to meet all of those situations.

This is the same information provided in a little bit of a different format.

This is nameplate capacity.

Nameplate capacity is how much could each of these resources produce under ideal conditions?

So for solar, for example, that's going to be middle of the day, middle of the summer.

Solar could produce up to 600 megawatts.

But across the entire year, it's going to produce significantly less because we're obviously not producing solar power at night and we produce significantly less during the day, during the winter.

This also has battery resources.

Battery is not generating power, but it's going to help us move power into those demand periods.

So we talked about managing peak demand previously.

Batteries are one of the ways that we can help do that.

So overall, we're showing a need for over 1,700 megawatts over the first 10 years of the study period and over 1,800 over the next 10 years for 3,500 megawatts total, which is a really significant number of resources.

The requested approval will allow City Light to be more competitive as we look for new resources to meet our power needs.

We're not the only entity that needs new resources.

A recent regional study identified a need for 9 gigawatts of new resources across the Northwest by 2030. So a gigawatt is 1,000 megawatts, so almost significantly more than what we're saying.

We're competing not only with other utilities, Bonneville Power Administration, but also with technology and data center developers to find enough power.

Additionally, we're seeing tax incentives expire.

These can make up to 30% of the capital cost of a project.

We want to find the projects for our customers that have those tax credits available to them at that lowest cost.

So the additional authority is going to make us more competitive, other power purchasers that we can secure the best resources for the city of Seattle.

Can I ask you a quick question, Siobhan?

I know that you're asking for the authority for Seattle City Light to authorize contracts up to 10, 20 years.

Was it intentional before that they limited that contracting ability?

Or was it just, are we just trying to keep up with the times?

We're trying to keep up with the time.

So in the past, we haven't needed new resources.

We had more than enough with our hydro.

When we build, or when a developer builds a new resource, they look to finance it, and we're gonna get the lowest cost if they can finance it over the longer time period, because they can spread out their cost over that entire period.

And so then that will give us a lower power cost.

But aren't we financing it through bond financing?

So these are for projects that we would not own, where they would be owned by a third party, and we would buy the power from that project.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

Okay, I get it now.

Okay, great.

Wait, customer Rivera has a question.

You got the right slide, girl?

Yeah.

Just to confirm, Siobhan, I mean, some of this is because we actually Until more recently, the last few years, we had plenty of power.

We were selling power.

Now we have to buy power.

So now we're in this situation.

So I think that's part of it, correct?

That's exactly part of it, yes.

So as we see our load increase, as well as we see more volatile weather, which drives higher peak loads, we need to buy power more often.

Our power is not constant throughout the year, so sometimes we will still sell it.

Like in the spring, we see snow melts, we have a lot of hydropower, we're selling power.

But during periods when we're going to need it most, we need to buy power.

Mm-hmm, and a lot of that had to do with just the electrification piece, which you outlined in the other slide.

Okay, thanks for confirming that.

Siobhan, when you put together slide six, did you, I mean, you have Amazon Meta, Amazon Grant, Avista, PGA, Pacific Core.

Is there any particular reason you listed them that way?

Are these like number one, I mean, is there a reason why?

No, the first one, the big story was that Amazon was competing against Puget Sound Energy and they were able to outbid PSE for a solar and storage project in Oregon.

So that one got a lot of attention because it was a direct competition between a technology company and a utility.

The rest of these, there wasn't a specific reason for the order.

Okay.

Yeah, they're sort of in...

Larger to smaller, but there was a specific reason.

But we wanted to tell the story was that we're not the only ones that need new renewables.

This is a need across the region and we're competing and it's strong competition.

And the better, the more quickly and more flexibly we can act, the better we can secure resources for our customers.

Okay, Siobhan, I'm gonna have you hold up one minute.

Councilman Rivera has a question.

Thank you.

Oh yeah.

Thank you, Chair Siobhan.

So can you just confirm, so we're competing against these tech companies, but do cities, and you may not know this, but do cities get priority for I mean, are these it just seems to me like cities need obviously electricity for their constituents and technology companies or commercial businesses.

So is there no within this we are straight up just competing with these commercial entities and there is no prioritization for for cities, for actual residents.

That's right.

So these are projects that are developed by private companies, and it takes years to develop a project to go through the permitting process to do what's called an interconnection study, which tells you whether or not you can interconnect to the transmission grid and to get rights on the transmission grid to move the power from where it's developed back to Seattle.

Because we didn't have a need for resources, we haven't built up that capability internally yet.

So in order to bring resources on quickly, we're gonna partner with third parties that are already developing these projects.

But for the most part, these are private companies and they're gonna look to sell to the, maybe not necessarily the highest bidder, but one that has a good credit score, one that they can rely on and know they can work with.

But there isn't any prioritization for cities.

Okay, so Siobhan, so how does Grant County fit into that?

So they, They were able to secure, and we've secured PPAs as well.

We've signed two solar PPAs, but they're another entity that we'll be competing with.

Okay.

It's not just tech companies, it's utilities as well that are looking for these resources.

Okay.

Okay.

Oh, Councillor Kettle's hand is up again in the bookcase.

Go ahead, Councillor Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

You know, I'm looking through, I have the briefing separately up and I'm bouncing through the slides.

And, you know, when I look at slide two, you know, I think about, you know, climate change, you know, what we're up against, you know, in terms of the different challenges.

and then as you walk through your briefing, it kind of goes to like what we were just talking about with DirectBerry Cable, the infrastructure pieces, because it takes infrastructure to build out even like solar, wind, all these different pieces.

And as you go up against what City Light is up against, the competition is definitely won, but it's also...

up against the competition to build infrastructure, you know, the transmission lines and everything along those lines, because as we're seeing now in terms of the East and West Washington or the Cascades, there's a lot of different pieces that go to that.

And I'm just thinking, you know, there's different types of competition and other factors that City Light is up against.

And climate change, I say that partly because the competition across the board on these markets and then the ability to transfer amongst these markets, which is a hiccup with the infrastructure and the quality of the infrastructure and the age of the infrastructure, that this combination is quite the challenge.

Am I right in everything I just said?

Am I off base?

No, you're completely right.

Transmission is going to be a really big challenge and we're coordinating with others throughout the region for both coordinating and competing with others throughout the region to build that transmission.

And then another way that we're going to be competing is that you know data centers need to build substations they need infrastructure like you said it's not just the competing for solar projects but the actual supply chains that we need the actual equipment that we need to build projects those are going to be in competition as well well hopefully the urban data centers you know it's interesting we brought up Nucor steel plant earlier which is incredible in terms of their being a you know the massive user but

they found a way for every by-product to become a product to sell and I just think of in this space as well in terms of what we can do to really move forward and find ways to develop different pieces of the market to really you know, create, you know, climate change itself.

You talk about solar, the shifts and the hydro and all these different pieces and it's like, hey, how can we, you know, take advantage of some sort, you know, and change, there's always opportunities to take advantage of the change itself.

And I just think that, you know, we need to be thinking in that long-term strategic fashion and it shows up in terms of you know what we're up against.

So I guess I'm saying in a way that you know this is one slide that says we're up against competition but in reality City Light is up against a number of different things and you know and Mark walking through that you know and you know and back to this with data centers they create heat.

So Here in Seattle, there's one that heats six buildings.

Imagine if every data center, small, big or large, was having some type of thing where that byproduct was being monetized or was being used in some other way, kind of going back to the new core steel plant, to then to lessen the burden on another area.

If these buildings are being heated and all new buildings are being electrified, well, that's a way to mitigate and ameliorate that situation.

Anyways, I know I realized that was a long piece, but I think that we have to be discerning in our discussion and conversation about this issue because it's very complex.

It's easy to say some things are good, some things are bad, some things are easy, some things are hard.

but it's more complex than that and as we walk through it and that's what I was you know coming up here against if you will is that it's more than just the competition so sorry chair that's a bit of a statement versus a I think I did get at least one question in there right Siobhan I don't think he did okay go ahead

But thank you for that, Councilmember Kettle.

But I did have, you did raise something, Councilmember Kettle, all teasing aside for Siobhan.

Siobhan, you listed seven, so I'm guessing that we have more competition than just, these are just the top seven or?

Yeah, these were seven that were top ones that have been recent, gotten some press out there, but yeah.

There's a lot of competition.

And not on here is Bonneville Power Administration.

We expect them to start a procurement program in the next, either later this year or next year.

So they'll be on, they'll be competing against them as well.

Hey, Siobhan, I should add for the viewing public to that.

And thank you so much, you and Rob for, well, actually Rob wasn't there yesterday, but we met with the Yakima Nation.

and their folks on the Columbia and Hydro and competition and data centers in Eastern Washington and also who got outbid.

And then today we are reading in GeekWire where Amazon again outbid and gained more property.

I can't remember the other, who else was it with Amazon?

Do you remember what space they got in South?

You don't remember?

Okay, policy poll does not have an answer, which never happens.

So we have a little bit more background with that.

Councilor Catalebi, happy to fill you in on all that information and customer Bersaca.

So we've been tracking all that, not just on this side of the mountains, but on the other side of the mountains.

So thank you, Siobhan.

Yeah, thank you.

This is my last slide, just restating the requested action to amend the legislation to allow us to additional authority to sign these agreements.

And so I was hoping Jeff was here because again, I always like Jeff's writing and his summary and fiscal note because he does sum it up that in order to execute these agreements for priority delivery up to 240 months for capacity energy, I think the most important thing that we were looking at is that these are for just electrical power, right?

Non, or what's it?

Are you on there?

I don't see him.

Okay, well, I just, it just, when he says, I think if we move this over one, I move.

Jeff is here.

Is he here?

I don't see him.

His photos, I mean, his camera's off, but he's there.

Oh, there he is.

Okay, well, I don't want to, he's, anyway, I think when we were reading the summary in fiscal note, we were talking about it, just for the viewing public that the legislation allows Seattle City Light to secure long-term power purchase agreements for non-carbon-emitting renewable energy resources.

and that's the most important thing I think people wanted to hear and make sure that that's what we were doing.

Did I miss anything, Paul?

Oh, Eric has his hand up?

Okay.

I apologize, you guys.

I'm toggling back and forth on the screen here, but where are you?

There you are, Eric.

Go ahead.

Just confirming that what you said is correct and that technically this is 240 months.

His contracts for 240 months would include capacity of energy, including attributes, transmission, or ancillary services.

And it's also important to note that these would be consistent with the Department's long-term planning processes.

So you can think of something like the IRP, the Integrated Resource Plan, that came to Council earlier as the place that you would see the planning or plan is right in there that would lead to these kinds of contracts.

So it's all grounded in the work that City Light does.

Right, and also in the summary and fiscal note, they do, and Council Member Peterson got this in here about making sure that in the summary and fiscal note that we address climate changes and impacts, which is also in there as well, which was not there before.

All right.

Okay, so with that, are there any other questions from my colleagues before we move on to a vote?

And I'm going to, oh, there's Jeff.

Okay, Jeff.

Hey, good to see you, buddy.

Thank you for the summary.

We can't hear you.

You're on mute.

Good afternoon, council member Juarez.

I should say that Jeff and I used to practice law together.

So I always appreciate your writing, Mr. Wolf.

Thank you.

Such a modest man.

All right.

So if there's not any other questions, oh, there is, who?

Did you have one?

Oh, go ahead, customer.

Thank you, Chair.

Just have a comment.

Just as in with the vote we just took on the planning, I mean, we hear a lot about rate increases and I understand the concerns from constituents about that and not or, City Light needs to be able to plan.

As you heard, we're in competition for power.

And so we need to also have a plan, a long-term plan, like we just passed, and then this next vote to give them the ability to have flexibility to enter into agreements so we're not missing out on negotiation because they don't have the ability to do so.

And that's important because this is moving really fast and we're in competition, as we saw with a lot of entities, not just other cities.

And I was just at the Association of Washington City, so I know other cities are also grappling with the power needs that we are.

But all the cities are in competition with all these private entities as well.

So I just wanted to state that for the record, as we're taking these votes, that the public understands this.

today's votes are not about the increases, but they are about the ability to allow City Light to enter agreements to purchase power, as well as to have a long-term strategy for power for the city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rivera, and I should add, as Councilmember Kettle has said this in his Public Safety Committee, Councilmember Bersaka, Rivera, myself, and Councilmember Lynn are all lawyers, so that's why you got a lot of questions going back through this.

Not to say that you have to be a lawyer to do this.

I'm just saying that's why it got a little wonky.

But you guys did a really good job.

Except for the page numbers, but that was okay.

As Councilmember Kettle said, that kept us on our toes.

Okay, so I'm not seeing any further questions or hands raised.

Is there anything else, Paula?

Do you see anyone else on the screen that I'm missing?

Okay, good, all right.

Okay, so I'm gonna go ahead and I move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 121241. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Saka.

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Vice Chair Kettle?

Aye.

Chair, there are four votes in favor.

Thank you.

The motion carries and Council Bill 121241 will be sent to the July 7th full city council meeting.

Okay, so that ends today's agenda.

And any other comments from my committee for the good of the order?

Okay, I'm not seeing any.

Since there's no further business, we are adjourned at 2.39.

And also, thank you so much, Seattle City Light.

Thank you, Rob.

Thank you, Jeff.

Thank you, Eric.

Thank you, Siobhan.

Who else did I forget?

Kirstie.

Kirstie.

I think that's- Paul did a great job.

Yeah.

Thank you to everybody.

Policy Paul.

Yes.

Yeah.

Policy Paul.

Go, Singhali.

Does anyone know the score?

It's 2-2.

They're in overtime.

2-2.

And they're in overtime?

I got money right on Singhali.

I'm just going to say it.

I'm just going to say it.

It was 2-1 earlier today.

All right.

All right.

Go, Senegal.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kirstie.

Bye Jeff.