Sustainability, City Light, Arts & Culture Committee 6/7/2024

The June 6th, 2024 meeting of the Sustainability City Light Arts and Culture Committee will come to order.

It is now 9.32 a.m.

I'm Tanya Wu, chair of the committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Moore?

Present.

Council Member Morales?

Council Member Saka?

Here.

Chair Wu?

Present.

Chair, there are three members present.

Thank you.

Council Member Strauss has been excused from today's meeting.

So if there are no objections, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

And so today the City Council is wearing orange for Gun Violence Awareness Day to honor survivors and to build community.

Today we will also in committee be looking at the appointment for City Light review panel as well as a presentation which we will not vote on today.

We will vote on this at the next meeting.

With that said, we will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to today's agenda item or within the purview of the committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Chair, we have one in-person speaker today.

So each speaker will have two minutes.

We will start the in-person speaker first.

So a quick reminder, the public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

Speakers will be called in order which they have registered.

And when you hear the chime, you have 10 seconds left before your mic is muted.

So please end your comments within a lot of time.

And so let's get started.

The public comment period is now open and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

The first in-person speaker is Shobhit Agarwal.

Honorable council members.

My name is Shobhit Agarwal.

I come to you to speak as an individual condominium owner.

There are hundreds of condo and apartment buildings in Seattle built before 2018. Most of these buildings are not ready to be enabled the majority of the residents to be able to own and charge electric vehicles at the same time.

My condo, for example, has 153 units across two buildings and 157 parking spots across two parking garages.

We have over five electric vehicles already with demand increasing rapidly.

We only have two charging stations in our building.

The main obstacles to enabling the legacy buildings for EVs is as follows.

The current infrastructure of Seattle City Lights needs to be upgraded so that the buildings can get a much higher electric current to be able to charge those vehicles.

The buildings themselves must make adjustments to distribute this current across all parking spots and charge for electric usage accordingly.

The buildings must ensure that this increased current follows the safety and relevant safety codes.

Many legacy residents are retired or are on fixed incomes and may not be able to afford the upgrade of these infrastructures.

But as the electric vehicles become cheaper, they would want to switch for environmental reasons.

Now I reached out to Seattle City Council multifamily EV program.

That program was, my email was forwarded to an external consultant who advised me that though Seattle City program can provide a complimentary assessment, currently it only provides a maximum rebate of $25,000 for charging stations between ports two and 10. Now, this solution may work for townhomes.

It doesn't work for condos or big apartment buildings with more than 25 units.

Just 2 in 10 ports are not sufficient.

I would also highlight that $25,000 is not a sufficient limit if you're building many more ports than 10. I bring this issue.

Thank you.

Are there any additional speakers?

Thank you.

So as a reminder, members of the public are encouraged to either submit written public comment on the signup cards available at the podium or email the council at councilatseattle.gov.

So we will now proceed to our items of business.

Will the clerk please read items one through four into the record?

Agenda items one through four, appointment 2877 to appointment 2880. Appointment of Mikhail Hansen, Carrie Lynn Mead, Joel Paisner, Oksana Savolyuk as members of the City Light Review Panel for a term to April 2027 for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

All four items have been read into the record.

Once ready, go ahead and get started.

I'd love to learn more about the future commission members.

Oops, hang on, sorry about that.

So I'm not, it's not coming up as the...

Okay.

Well I want, yeah, well I want it to work on the screen, so I guess I'm sharing the wrong screen, is that it?

Sorry.

No, it's okay.

Let's try this again.

And then you want this one, the full one?

Yeah.

Starting at the beginning.

So thank you for your patience as soon as we get the presentation ready.

I thought we had it all set.

Great.

There we go, okay.

Okay, all right, I think we're ready.

We're on, good morning, council members, Chair Wu.

We are here this morning to talk about four City Light review panel reappointments.

The City Light review panel is made up of nine members, and they represent City Light's customers and partners.

They review and assess our proposed strategic plan and provide an opinion on the merits of the plan and accompanying rate path, which goes to the mayor and the council for approval and will be coming to you in July.

These five positions, five of the positions are assigned by the mayor.

and four are assigned by the city council.

All nine positions are confirmed by the city council and they serve three year terms and can be reappointed.

The four members up for reappointment today are all mayoral appointments and are being appointed to another three-year term.

All of our positions on the City Light Review Panel are currently full, which we're very proud of.

It's one of those commissions that requires a lot of time and attention, and we really appreciate the dedication of our current members and that we have a full contingency of review panel members right now.

So today's action is to confirm these four reappointments.

In position three is Carrie Mead.

She is the nonprofit energy efficiency advocate.

Ms. Mead is the executive director of an energy efficiency business association supporting the Pacific Northwest energy efficiency business sector as it transitions to the clean energy transformation and availability of new technologies for our customers.

She has a valuable perspective to contribute to the City Light review panel and a strong interest in seeing City Light successfully navigate the competing pressures it faces.

In position five is Michael Hansen.

He's the commercial customer representative.

Michael Hansen's experience with large, complex properties was established prior to joining SABE, which is where he currently works, where he spent 20 years managing some of the nation's largest shopping malls.

He eventually returned to his home in the Northwest to manage the South Center Mall, the largest mall in Washington.

For the past two decades, he has led the SABIE property management team and is responsible for the management and operations of SABIE's over 4 million square foot diverse portfolio, including commercial, office, medical, warehouse, and data center uses.

Michael serves as SABIE's representative to a variety of municipalities and agencies and is one of our longest serving members of the review panel and has previously been our chair.

Sorry, I meant to hold the slide up a little longer.

The other two, position seven, Oksana Savluka.

She is the Energy Program Director for the South King County Multi-Service Center, an organization that offers people pathways out of poverty through support and resources in education, employment, housing, energy assistance, food, and clothing.

In her role, she works closely with City Light to help our income-eligible customers access the federal low-income heating energy assistance program called LIHEAP and our own utility discount program.

With her 26 years of experience, her expertise and passion for serving our most vulnerable customers is invaluable to the City Light review panel and to City Light.

The fourth reappointee today is Joel Paisner.

He is our suburban franchise city customer representative.

Mr. Paisner, a resident of Lake Forest Park, one of our franchise cities, has over 30 years of experience representing and providing strategic advice to businesses and governmental entities.

His practice today as an attorney is focused on the energy and telecommunications sectors and serving as general counsel to electric utilities in Washington and Alaska.

We appreciate Mr. Pazner's electric sector expertise and his civic engagement and commitment to the residents of Lake Forest Park.

Mr. Pazner also serves as the vice chair for the review panel currently.

So those are our four reappointments.

We're pleased to bring them to the city council for confirmation, and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you, it sounds like a very accomplished group of people who have done a lot of amazing work and I'm looking forward to see them continue that work.

Colleagues, are there any questions or comments?

Great, I move that the committee recommends confirmation appointments 2877 to 2880 to the City Light Review Panel.

Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to confirm the appointments.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of the appointments?

Council Member Moore?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Chair Wu?

Yes.

Three in favor, zero opposed.

The motion carries and the recommendation is that the appointments be confirmed to be sent to the City Council.

Thank you.

So we will now move on to our next item of business.

Will the clerk please read the last item into the record?

Agenda item five, Port of Seattle system improvements associated with Terminal 46 and Pier 66 shore power project agreement legislation for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

So when ready, go ahead and get started.

All right.

Good morning, Council Members, Chair Wu.

I'm Phil Ambrose, Senior Project Manager with Seattle City Light.

The purpose of this briefing today is to discuss the Port of Seattle's shore power project at Pier 66 and a forthcoming MOA and ordinance that will be, that is the subject of this briefing today.

Go ahead, next slide, please.

So just an overall agenda.

is we'll provide an overview of shore power, discuss the project goals, talk about the MOA, and also provide an overview of the ordinance itself.

Next slide, please.

So shore power, what is it?

Well, whether they are cruise ships, cargo ships, or other vessels, shore power enables ships and boats to run off of electrical power while in dock or in berth.

That's the fundamental purpose of shore power.

The port estimates a reduction in diesel emissions by 80%.

and carbon dioxide emissions by 66% while in berth for cruise ships while using shore power at Pier 66. City Light has already previously partnered with the Port of Seattle for shore power for cruise vessels at Pier 91 and for cargo ships at Terminal 5. And in concert with the Seattle Waterfront Clean Energy Strategy, the Port and City Light are also projecting shore power at Terminals 48 and 18 for cargo vessels.

So shore power provides that electrical service to ships while they're in dock so that they do not have to run their diesel engines and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.

Next slide, please.

Specifically for the Port of Seattle's Pier 66 shore power product, both the port and the city share common goals.

One primarily, as previously discussed, shore power enables an overall reduction of emissions by allowing true ships to turn off their auxiliary diesel engines while in berth.

Additionally, the active reduction of emissions brought by shore power minimizes the impact to historically disadvantaged communities on Seattle's working waterfront.

And so this assists with Pier 66, but also shore power in future projects also helps with reducing that environmental impact.

Just a couple notes with the pictures here are showing some of the civil underground duckbank work that occurred in fall 2023 on Terminal 46, and I'll talk about that in more detail in forthcoming slides.

Next slide, please.

Continuing with just a brief overview of the project goals, additionally, the Pier 66 Shore Power Project is one of multiple projects and efforts between City Light and the Port of Seattle.

Here's 66, shore power gets after City Lights goals outlined in City Lights clean energy future strategic priority, as well as City Lights transportation electrification strategic investment plan.

And then lastly, this project is one of the first projects outlined in the ongoing Seattle Waterfront Clean Energy Strategy, which is a tri-party partnership between the Port of Seattle, City Light, and Northwest Seaport Alliance to look at ways to electrify the port's facilities, Northwest Seaport Alliance's properties through 2050 to reduce emissions.

Next slide, please.

Here's an overview of the Pier 66 Shore Power Project, which is a project within City Lights Maritime Transportation Electrification Program, or MARTEP for short.

Referencing the map on the screen, noting that north is to the right and south being to the left, there are three basic segments of the work that are underway.

The first segment, number one, is about 2,600 linear feet of underground civil infrastructure, which are vaults and duckbanks on Terminal 46 for the Pier 66 Shore Power Service.

This civil infrastructure also provides for future port services on Terminal 46 and for a City Light distribution system extension north for future MARTEP customers, including Washington State ferries.

The vaults and duct banks provide an underground pathway for City Light to pull our electrical cable and install other high-voltage electrical equipment.

This civil infrastructure on Terminal 46 is all but complete as of mid-May 2024. And City Light crews are beginning their electrical cable work this month in preparation for energizing the submarine cable and electrical equipment on Pier 66. For Segment 2, shown on the map, that is specifically for the 6,100 linear foot submarine cable between Terminal 46 and Pier 66. This submarine cable was actually laid already from Pier 66 south to Terminal 46 in mid-January 2024, which you'll see some pictures of it throughout this presentation.

That cable itself is eight inches in diameter and it extends City Lights 26,000 volt primary service from Terminal 46 to Pier 66. And per the proposed memorandum of agreement, the port is the permitted owner of the submarine cable.

They've already got that permitted through the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.

And then lastly, for the third segment, that is the electrical equipment and shore power charging infrastructure on Pier 66 itself.

The port has electrical equipment that transforms from City Lights primary service to an 11,000-volt service that provides shore power to cruise ships at Pier 66 when they're docked So overall, the design began on this project in 2019 and wrapped up in early 2023. The Port of Seattle then proceeded using a public works bid process to select Orion Marine Construction as the prime contractor for most of this work shown here.

And this construction started in August 2023 and is estimated to be complete by end of September this year.

Go to the next slide, please.

For the memorandum of agreement itself, the port has budgeted $44 million overall, which includes about $1.8 million for City Lights service work.

Our cost share, City Lights cost share for this is about 3.6 million, which includes 2,600 linear feet of duct banks and bolts on Terminal 46, which will enable our system extension for future Martep customers and projects.

This includes Washington State Ferries, namely, as well as potentially King County Marine Division, Kitsap Transit, and Port of Seattle.

It, again, gets after those goals of electrifying Seattle's waterfront and maritime industry.

Next slide, please.

In general, in summary, the ordinance before you authorizes City Light to execute and deliver a two-year memorandum agreement with the Port of Seattle for this project, which is included in the legislative package.

The MOA itself includes an easement for City Light to maintain electrical equipment installed on the Port's property at Terminal 46. Secondly, the ordinance before you authorizes City Light to execute a 30-year operations agreement between City Light and the Port of Seattle, which is forthcoming.

It's still in draft form.

The operations agreement is for 30 years, which is based off the port's permit for the submarine cable through the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, which the term of that permit is 30 years.

Additionally, City Light System Operations Center wants to establish clear notification and coordination procedures when the cruise ships are docking at Pier 66, as well as outline the procedures when the port intends to de-energize the cable for routine maintenance.

That'll be included in the operations agreement.

This concludes the presentation at this time, so if there are any questions or comments, I'm open to them.

Thank you, colleagues.

Any questions or comments?

Customer Osaka.

Yeah.

Thank you madam chair.

Thank you for this really a helpful presentation And I understand, you know today we are here talking about a very specific project Related to shore power, but wanted to step back for a moment and because I have some kind of broader questions just curious so Makes a lot of sense to add capacity and shore power.

It sounds like it's broadly consistent with our regional climate and electrification goals, both at the port level, city level, probably other governments as well.

So love that.

As I understand, these various cruise ships that would be kind of plugging in, whether it's this one or another, they...

It's a choice today whether they do that or not.

And also, as I understand, please help validate some of my assumptions here as well.

But also, as I understand, it is more cost effective for cruise ship operators today to continue burning diesel.

or burning their gas engines rather than plugging in.

I guess we'll start there.

Is that true or not true?

Councilmember, I'm not entirely sure about the cost-benefit analysis between burning diesel fuel while on berth versus plugging into shore power.

However, I know the port is coordinating with the various cruise lines that would plug in to use this infrastructure at Pier 66, including Norwegian cruise lines.

I suspect that there is a cost savings there.

However, I don't know for certain.

Yeah.

I have some broader questions about the systemic barriers to driving higher adoption with this.

It's great to build out the infrastructure, but...

Well, table stakes to build out the infrastructure, but we need to also create the conditions...

including market conditions where, in this case, cruise ships actually want to plug in and utilize this.

Do we have a point of view?

So putting that aside, do we have a point of view on what the anticipated utilization rate for this will be, is likely to be?

Utilization rate?

Yeah.

So specifically for this project, So the port at Pier 66 provides docking for cruise ships from April to October seasonally, and that's roughly for two days every week or so as a cruise ship docks from Norwegian and then unloads and off and reloads passengers and cargo and things like that onto that cruise ship.

In terms of adoption, they currently only have berth for one cruise ship at that particular location, but that's the intended way for, as I understand it, that the port will operate that infrastructure at Pier 66. For other piers, or Pier 66 itself, it remains to be seen as we're currently in the process of planning with the Seattle Waterfront Clean Energy Strategy with the port as to if there will be shore power at those other locations as well.

But currently at Pier 66, one cruise ship roughly once a week between April and October.

And Councilman, I was just going to add.

So this means that all three birth peers that host cruise ships now have shore power.

And much as it is driven by the many of those cruise ships go up to Alaska for cruises, and many of the Alaskan ports require shore power as well.

This is really something that the cruise industry wanted as well because they wanted to be able to use shore power down here, and we only had just the two berths.

Now all three will provide shore power for the cruise ships, most of which can operate on shore power.

So that's sort of the future, I would say, of cruise industry.

So all three have shore power capability, which is terrific.

If 100 ships dock in any specified period, how many of those...

are anticipated to leverage this shore power hookup?

I think that's a great question we can ask the port, but I think the expectation was is that if they have the capacity for shore power, they will be plugging in for shore power.

Yeah, we'd definitely love to learn.

I mean, that's kind of table stakes information.

Creating capability is excellent, but you need to know what you're serving and what the need is, and not only today, but on a projected going forward basis.

So that's kind of critical information for you all to kind of report back and share information on.

The expectation is that the cruise ships that are going to be docked in Seattle will be connected to shore power.

100%.

100% utilization.

I can't speak for the port.

I'm just saying that we've created the venue for them to be able to have their cruise ships plug into shore power.

I would like better clarity and transparency around what that utilization actually is projected to be today and then over time as well.

I will get that from the Port of Seattle for you.

We'll have that for you for the next meeting.

Thank you.

I want the record to reflect that Council Member Rivera is here.

Thank you for attending and you're free to please join us as much as you can.

Love to have you.

Also want to let the record reflect that Council Member Morales is excused today for today's committee meeting.

Any additional questions or comments?

So I assume you will be before the committee at the next meeting for the approval of this ordinance.

And so if you have any questions or comments, colleagues, they will be here at the next meeting to answer those questions.

And we will reach out to the port as well council member and make sure that we know what their plans are specifically in terms of the relationship they have with the cruise lines and the expectation they have for the cruise lines in terms of usage of the shore power.

Thank you.

They very much wanted this done, and this has taken a few years because of all of the other work going on on the waterfront.

And so that's why they went with this very innovative operation of having a marine cable, which was new and different and required a lot of work, a lot of engineering.

And so really great partnership with them to kind of think outside the box on how not to tear up our waterfront that we just completed in order to do this.

So really appreciate the partnership with the port.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I just have one quick question and apologies.

I was tardy, so you may have covered this, but just in case.

Wondering, are there any negative impacts to the city with this request and this change, adding that third pier to have shore power?

No.

From City Life's perspective, this supports our goals with electrifying the maritime industry as part of this.

And like Maura said, we have a great working relationship with the Port of Seattle.

This is something that's been in the works for quite some time.

So I cannot think of any negative ramifications from this.

Including we have sufficient power in the grid to accommodate what the usage going back to Council Member Saka's question about usage.

This is part of what you'll be hearing about, which is both exciting and challenging, which is our growing load.

As you heard from our new general manager, that our load is growing faster than we anticipated, particularly in the transportation sector, but the value and benefits to the residents of the City of Seattle are so enormous from a public health standpoint.

So, yes, we're going to have to be ready, and We're already working on that, and we have both the strategic plan as well as our integrated resource plan that we'll be bringing to the council that will be providing that sort of roadmap for how we're going to achieve that energy, additional energy that we're going to need to acquire.

And it will be renewable, clean energy as well.

which I very much support.

So definitely want to be on the record of supporting the electrification.

And I did talk to Director Lindell about the fact that currently we do have sufficient power to accommodate all the electrification needs, including all the transition from gas to electric and all of that.

So that's really great to hear.

Thank you.

Council Member Saca?

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, just really excellent question, Council Member Rivera.

I always call you Maritza behind the scenes.

Council Member Rivera, excellent question.

No, it does kind of highlight the importance of my earlier question as well, like understanding the utilization rate and the projections there and the underlying data, both what we anticipate today and then on a going forward basis because of the increased load demand and strain, and I'm sure a bunch of smart engineers within City Light already have that access to that information or are thinking about it, but it absolutely impacts our ability to meet the continuing ongoing need citywide.

So because it...

takes a lot of energy to use.

So anyways, yeah, we'll definitely appreciate the follow-up.

Just to clarify, you're not looking at just the amount of time they use it, but what the energy load impacts are.

I personally care less about that.

But yeah, just what the overall kind of utilization rate is.

Thank you.

And I'm sure some experts in City Light care way more about that and are better positioned to act.

Thank you.

Any additional comments or questions?

Okay, so it looks like we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

If there are no further business to come up for the committee before we adjourn.

Great, hearing no further business to come up for the committee, we are adjourned.

Thank you.