Distributed energy production questions answered by Seattle City Light

Hello,

I am a Fremont resident inquiring out of curiosity about Seattle City Light policy towards residents or businesses connecting their power generation to, and selling to, the Seattle City Light grid. To get a quick context of what I am exploring, please read the following:

"The reason that all these other countries are building solar-panel industries today is because most of their governments have put in place the three prerequisites for growing a renewable energy industry: 1) any business or homeowner can generate solar energy; 2) if they decide to do so, the power utility has to connect them to the grid; and 3) the utility has to buy the power for a predictable period at a price that is a no-brainer good deal for the family or business putting the solar panels on their rooftop."

- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/opinion/16friedman.html

Any information would be helpful,

-Lance Miller

Hi Lance,

Thanks for your email. City Light is proud to have about 200 solar electric systems installed in our service territory. The majority of these are residential systems, though there are about 20 systems installed on businesses, plus 24 demonstration systems on schools, parks, libraries and other public buildings.

All of these systems are eligible for net metering, which is where if your system is producing more power than you can use at any moment, you can send that energy back onto the electric grid and spin you meter backwards in the process, earning a credit for the electricity. System owners are also eligible for the WA State Renewable Energy Production Incentive which pays up to $5,000 per year for the energy produced (at $0.15 to $0.54 per kilowatt-hour generated).

We just put the finishing touches on a guide to installing solar electric systems and I've attached that here. More info can be found at www.seattle.gov/light/solar. Please let me know if you have more questions I can help answer.

Cheers,
Meg

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Meg Gluckman
Solar America City Coordinator

Seattle City Light
Conservation Division
206-684-4827

I'm an urban liberal who just can't seem to fit in with urban liberals

I'm currently a supporter of Mike McGinn for mayor of Seattle. I follow his campaign on Facebook [facebook.com/McGinnforMayor].

Lately I've had some intellectual friction with postings from McGinn. Let's start with this entry from McGinn: "Cary Moon of the People's Waterfront Coalition has written an excellent article on HAC detailing the many reasons why the deep-bore tunnel should not be constructed." >http://hugeasscity.com/2009/09/30/special-guest-post-tunnel-digest/.

I posted this response in the Facebook thread:

Read the posted article. Phrases like "vibrant urban street" and "incentives to not use cars" shouldn't be part of the discussion. This is a state highway, for throughput of relatively fast traffic in route from one point in the state to another, e.g. West Seattle to Shoreline.

A few days ago I weighed in another issue, McGinn agrees with the Mayor Nickels effort to ban guns from public property such as parks.

I don't encourage the carrying of firearms as a solution to anything, so I'm not pro-gun. But I think this ban is going to fail at the legal level, and end up costing money for the effort. I'm voting for McGinn regardless of this one issue, but feel it is playing the identity politics card for votes. McGinn doesn't need to do that, he's got many fine points.

Back to the Anti-Deep-Bore-Tunnel article. My family should be held up as the most model citizens when it comes to progressive transportation lifestyle. We walk or bike everywhere. Especially to work and for grocery shopping. We've located our residence so as to not need a car. But even as we are committed car-less, I see a certain kind of anti-car stance as a bad thing. I want to call it punitive identity politics. The Alaska Way Viaduct replacement as example, we have so-called progressives who want to sabotage the effort. They want to make something that isn't a state highway. To get to a final point of reference: I don't want to live in a city that isn't a city. A city absolutely must have some conduits of high speed intercourse with the globe. I agree that into the future we should have less or no cars, and "high speed intercourse" may all be online. I embrace that. But today, and in the next several years, we have a large constituency who need to drive, in a timely manner, from West Seattle to North Seattle, at hours when buses do not run. We have a democracy, those people should be served by city and state services. It is slightly fascist for a portion of our constituency to dictate a car-less agenda to those who rely on cars for employment and their paycheck.

Assaults on students at Seattle's Roosevelt High School

[link] Seattle P-I Article with user comments

Posted by JoeUser at 10/9/08 9:56 a.m. 194545

I attended Roosevelt from 77-81. I was robbed twice on school grounds by black students, and this was almost a daily occurrence among my friends back then. The attackers were nearly always kids that had been bussed in from other schools, so we never knew who they were, and they typically disappeared from school for a week or two afterwards, so the problem never went away.

Regarding reader "Roosevelt" comment about baseball bats...it was also fairly common for people to show up at school with a trunk full of them after an incident.

I know one student who ran down the stairs in front of the school when a black kid pulled a knife and attempted to rob him. The attacker threw the knife from the top of the stairs and managed to nick my friend in the back.

I'm not afraid to say that it was black students committing these crimes, because that's who it was. Is it racist to state that fact? I don't recall a single instance of a friend being robbed by another white kid.

I had many black friends in high school, and still have many today. I don't care what color a persons skin is as long as they are good people. Unfortunately, many experiences in high school and while living in the Central District for three years have made me wary.

Murderer of young woman subsidized by the State

Continuing from the previous post, I'm still talking about people who kill random people for no economic or political reason.

On New Year's Eve 2007, Shannon Harps was killed by multiple stab wounds in front of her Capitol Hill condo. The killer was not after money, nor was he an ex-boyfriend. The person currently charged with the slaying has been jailed multiple times over several decades, including for shooting a random person at a Seattle bus stop. He had the legal status of Dangerous Mentally Ill Offender.

James A. Williams

"The Dangerous Mentally Ill Offender program provides state-funded supervision, mental health counseling, medication and housing for high-risk offenders who have been released from prison." -Seattle PI

So in the case of Shannon Harps, a young single woman working for the Sierra Club, the State of Washington subsidized her murderer with knowledge amongst the State's professional classes that he would likely murder again.

This is the opposite of a society empowered to create its own safety. It is a society subsidizing its own endangerment.

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Supplemental and supporting material:

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Harps' death called "random predatory violent killing" -Seattle PI