CITY OF SEATTLE
ORDINANCE __________________
COUNCIL BILL __________________
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AN ORDINANCE relating to the City Light Department; amending rates, terms, and conditions for the use and sale of electricity supplied by the City Light Department for 2024, 2025, and 2026; and amending Sections 21.49.020, 21.49.030, 21.49.052, 21.49.055, 21.49.057, 21.49.058, 21.49.060, 21.49.065, 21.49.083, 21.49.085, and 21.49.086 of the Seattle Municipal Code.
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WHEREAS, the City Light Department's Adopted 2025-2030 Strategic Plan Update establishes the amount of total revenue to be collected from customers through rates for 2025 and 2026, which translates to average rate increases of 5.4 percent in both years; and
WHEREAS, the Department has completed a cost of service study that identifies the amount of revenue to be collected from each customer rate class; and
WHEREAS, a report on rate design completed jointly by the Department and the City Light Review Panel, presented to the City Council in 2019 and memorialized in Clerk File 321222, identified near-term priorities to (1) adjust residential block rates to be closer to actual cost and facilitate other rate design concepts, (2) deploy a time-of-use rate option to help manage power demands at peak time and help customers to reduce their costs, and (3) increase basic service charges to reflect the fixed costs associated with serving individual customers; and
WHEREAS, Ordinance 126677 reduced the number of rate schedules for 2023 onward, restructuring rate codes such that customers outside Seattle are served under the same schedule, with changes for franchise differentials, utility taxes, and undergrounding applied based on the jurisdiction in which the customer is located; and
WHEREAS, effective January 1, 2024, the Department implemented a Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) pass-through that increased all per kWh charges by 0.12 cents per kWh without amending the Seattle Municipal Code (SMC), as authorized by SMC 21....
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