Seattle City Light’s Powerful Neighborhoods program to install free compact fluorescent light bulbs is moving to a new section ofNorth Seattle, starting today.
Seattle City Light’s Powerful Neighborhoods program to install free compact fluorescent light bulbs is moving to a new section ofNorth Seattle, starting today.
“Since we launched this program last year we have served more than 17,500 households and installed more than 330,000 compact florescent light bulbs,” City Light Conservation Resources Director Glenn Atwood said. “This will reduce energy consumption by about 10 million kilowatt-hours of electricity each year for the next five years and save our customers $50 to $60 a year on their electricity bills.”
The new area covers from 85th Street to 110th Street from Puget Sound toLake Washington.
Powerful Neighborhoods started in South Seattle last year as a pilot program and expanded toSeattle’s southern suburbs, part of the Central District, Shoreline andNorth Seattle. It is designed to reach out door-to-door to seniors, non-English speaking households, low-income residents and other customers who might not have participated in energy conservation programs.
“We are pleased to offer these services to our customers because saving energy is the most cost-effective way to meet the City’s future electricity needs,” Atwood said.
Seattle City Light is working with Ecos Consulting, Cascadia Consulting, the Environmental Coalition of South Seattle (ECOSS), and Working Green to hire and train installers, schedule home visits, and deliver and install the products.
All installers undergo background checks and drug-screening. Installers fluent in more than a dozen languages, including Spanish, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Amharic and Cantonese, are available to visit homes where English is not the primary language. All staff carry Seattle City Light identification. Short profiles and photos of all installers can be seen at http://www.seattle.gov/light/install/installers.asp .
City Light will mail residents in the new territory a letter inviting them to schedule an appointment. Installers also canvass neighborhoods door-to-door. If an interested resident is home, staff will install the energy efficient light bulbs and provide low-flow shower heads and faucet aerators or schedule a more convenient time to visit. If the resident is not home, installers leave a notice regarding how to contact the program to arrange a visit.
To qualify, a resident must live in a single-family home, a townhome, or 2- to 4-unit apartment or condo. To make an appointment, call 206-449-1132 or send an email to SCL_install@seattle.gov
Response from customers has been overwhelmingly positive with more than 96 percent of those who completed a satisfaction survey saying that they would definitely recommend the program to their neighbors and friends.
Seattle City Light is the 10th largest public electric utility in theUnited States. It has some of the lowest cost customer rates of any urban utility, providing reliable, renewable and environmentally responsible power to nearly 1 millionSeattlearea residents. City Light has been greenhouse gas neutral since 2005, the first electric utility in the nation to achieve that distinction.