Seattle City Light's efforts to promote the use of renewable energy is reaching across the Pacific Ocean to Seattle's sister city of Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan television reporter Mukhammadjon Bekmukhammedov interviews Seattle City Light Renewable Energy Program Manager Jack Brautigam.
Seattle City Light’s efforts to promote the use of renewable energy is reaching across the Pacific Ocean to Seattle’s sister city of Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Television Reporter Mukhammadjon Bekmukhammedov and Photojournalist Azizjon Akhmedjanov from NTT in Tashkent interviewed Seattle City Light staff at the utility’s Community Solar project in Beacon Hill’s Jefferson Park today about the growing use of solar in Seattle.
About 700 City Light customers have installed solar panels on their homes and businesses. City Light has installed about 30 solar demonstration projects throughout its service territory. The utility is now working with Northwest SEED to encourage others to consider solar with a group purchase program called Solarize Seattle that lowers the cost of the equipment and installation.
For people who don’t have an effective location to intall solar panels or can’t afford to install their own, Community Solar is another option. Participants buy a portion of the output from three sets of solar panels installed as picnic shelters at Jefferson Park.
Bekmukhammedov said few people have installed solar panels in Tashkent, but they are interested in learning more about how they might be used and the advantages of clean, renewable energy.
Bekmukhammedov and Akhmedjanov are visiting the United States through a U.S. State Department program that invites foreign journalists to experience America first hand and share what they learn back home. After their stay in Seattle, the television journalists are scheduled to visit, Portland, Las Vegas, Palm Desert and Los Angeles.