The technology exists to match Seattle City Light kilowatt per kilowatt to be solar-powered. Every kilowatt generated from hydropower also can be electricity from sunlight.
Seattle is ideal for solar collectors. It can be done and is affordable. There is a small, but growing private, solar-manufacturing industry in Washington state. Arlington is a hot bed for "meter run backwards" systems.
Solar photovoltaics (PV) factories are coming. These PV cells can be on your roof, or even attached to your computer. We can float truck trailer-size solar photovoltaics behind the hydrodams, putting power in the grid during droughts.
There are stand-alone solar systems, like the solar-powered calculator. Any battery-powered device you have at home can be converted to solar energy. This "load-relieves" Seattle City Light. It helps the utility to keep line voltages constant. Plus, surplus power can be sold to other utilities at a profit.
Seattle City Light is primarily an all-hydro electric system. What happens if it does not rain? Seattle City Light has to buy power from other utilities at preditorial and ridiculous rates.
Solar energy is more than just photovoltaics. Electric hot-water heaters can be retrofited with solar. Solar hot-water heaters can be 90-percent efficient, working in the coldest and cloudiest conditions. Solar hot-water works well during summer droughts when hydrodams do not.
There are major developments in "big-wind," large turbines. But unnoticed are new developments in "microwind," small turbines, about the size of bicycle wheels. Wind energy tends to be very available during winter, stormy conditions, exactly when solar sunlight is less available.
A small, one-kilowatt microwind turbine in the middle of your roof can drive an electric heater in the winter. Thus, the electric AC furnace does not work so hard. Wind energy conserves power in the winter and works during blackouts.
What is the hangup? Bluntly, the attitudes of "mega-home" owners. People on fixed/low incomes use power for essentials like lights, but megahome owners use power for mostly luxury. One definition of being rich is you have lots energy to waste; one definition of being poor is you lack energy.
The hangup is squarely lack of capital investment into Northwest inventors with legitimate, patented devices. We need a local, solar-heat manufacturer. Right now, more expensive equipment has to be imported.
The bad news is the local venture capitalists are outright negative toward solar investments. We need to change the attitudes of local investors if we are to get capital to solar (and microwind) manufacturing.
We need to get away from the everyone-pays-the-same flat rates. We need to get the attention of megawasters. Not all electrical power costs the same. Federal hydropower, for example, from Roosevelt-era dams, is dirt cheap. Everyone wants it. By going to a multiple-tier rate structure, it allows everyone to have a portion of that cheap power; even the rich get a portion.
Right now, we have a three-tier system for Seattle City Light. The first tier is 4 cents; the second tier, 8 cents and the third, 12 cents, or there so about. By going to a 10-tier system, where the first tier is 4 cents, the next 5 cents, the next 6 cents and so on, it gives megawasters an incentive to conserve.
By making Seattle City Light into a tri-energy system (solar, wind and hydro), it will guarantee electrical power for generations to come. One energy source supplements the other: solar energy in the summer, wind energy in the winter and hydropower acts like a giant storage battery filling in when solar and wind is not available.
We are talking jobs. Going to a multiple-rate structure gets the attention of the money people. High energy cost is like a tax on the economy; every business pays for it.
Seattle has one of the largest number of investors per square mile than the rest of the country, yet for years they refuse to open capital for renewable-energy investment.
If we can make solar collectors faster than the world can make babies, we just might not need those charity hospitals in the first place. Solar cookers allow people in refugee camps to cook their own food.
This gives megawasters of energy incentives to invest into renewable technology. This is not a rate increase, just a better way of collecting revenue.
I am a fan of Seattle City Light. It is a not-for-profit utility owned by the ratepayers of Seattle. You own Seattle City Light.
Seattle City Light was the first to implement home weatherization, low-income utility assistance and pioneer long-distance AC power, hydropower generation and protection measures for fisheries.
We can solar-power the monorail, electric bus system and light rail - just from the sunlight falling on nearby parking lots.
It is time we implement get-the-message electric rates: The more you use, the more you pay. And let's get serious about solar manufacturing.
Seattle City Light can again be the first - the first to solar-power an entire city! It can be done.
Martin Nix is the founding secretary of Solar Washington and a member of the International Solar Cooking Association.
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