We are planning for our energy future... To make public power work for you.
Seattle City Light shares your concerns about household costs and energy security. We are looking for ways to serve you better and help you manage energy bills. To do this, we are asking for your help to improve our understanding of how residents use electricity in their homes.
A group of Seattle City Light customers are being mailed a survey booklet in April.
If you receive the booklet, your reply to the survey will represent about 100 households in your neighborhood. Every response is important.
Whether you live in a single-family house, an apartment or a condominium, your help is needed. Even if you use only a small amount of electricity each month, we still need to hear from you. We depend on your help to represent your neighborhood accurately.
Your response is a valuable part of your utility's success. Your completed booklet will:
- Be used to plan for future electricity needs, conservation programs, and customer services.
- Give us information that only you can provide.
- Take about 30 minutes on average to fill out.
If you receive the booklet… Please join your public utility in planning for the challenges of the next decade!
Please return your completed booklet in the postage-paid envelope provided –no stamps are needed. You can mail the yellow and green postcards with your booklet or separately. And, please accept our thanks for your help.
Seattle City Light is preparing for the next decade, and we want you to be a part of it.
City Light has a 30-year history of national leadership in conservation, with award-winning, innovative programs. And did you know that City Light is owned by the citizens of Seattle, and provides public power without generating a profit? Thank you for making a difference.
Sincerely,
Bob Balzar, Director, Conservation Resources Division
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this a legitimate survey – or is this a sales gimmick?
Yes, this is a legitimate survey being conducted by Seattle City Light. We are a public power utility. Seattle City Light is owned by the citizens of Seattle, and provides power to our City and nearby neighborhoods without making any profit.
Seattle City Light is not trying to persuade you to buy more electricity, and is not trying to “sell you” anything. We are, however, interested in keeping energy costs low for all Seattle citizens by planning and offering conservation programs to the public. We are planning for the next decade, and asking residents of every neighborhood to take part.
This survey is being mailed to about 1.5% of utility customers. Your reply to the survey will represent about 100 households in your neighborhood.
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How will my household information be kept private and secure?
Your participation is completely voluntary and confidential. We will use the information you give us only for research purposes here at Seattle City Light.
Your name and address will never be attached to the survey — neither to the booklet nor to any data file created from the booklet. Your survey booklet is imprinted with a machine-readable mailing code. The mailing code will be used to avoid sending mailed reminders to those households that have already replied to the survey. The mailing code will also be used to pair your answers with information from our billing system on the amount of energy used in study homes.
This pairing of information is done by using codes that are not known to anyone outside of our utility. And, we use an encryption method to make that code difficult for anyone else to interpret. Once the energy use data have been paired to the survey data, the encrypted code is removed. The resulting data file does not contain any information that could identify your household or address.
We will take every care to protect your privacy, because we understand how important that is. No one analyzing or viewing the data from this survey will know which information came from which household.
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What do I do if I don't understand a particular question in the survey booklet?
Please call this telephone number for help understanding what the booklet is asking: 206.684.3800. The utility staff answering this phone has a copy of the booklet and is prepared to help. They also can provide you with information about conservation programs and other City Light services.
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What happens to my booklet after it is returned to Seattle City Light?
Information from the booklet will be put into a research data file and analyzed, along with survey data from all the other households. The paper booklets will be stored in a secure archive location while research goes on, and then will be destroyed. The research database will be kept on a secure computer system that is protected by the City of Seattle's “firewall” – just the same way that we protect all customer records at the utility.
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What is Seattle City Light going to do with this information?
As you can imagine, planning for Seattle's energy future requires understanding the many factors and changes included in this survey. At Seattle City Light, we will summarize what we learn about each neighborhood. We will then plan the best way to make public power work for you.
By pairing information about space heat systems, water heat systems, appliances, electronics, and lighting — along with energy use data — the utility can summarize the power needed to serve Seattle homes, now and in the future. Plans are to create these summaries at the neighborhood level, as well as for the City and utility service area as a whole.
The information you are asked to supply in the questionnaire is detailed enough to help us focus on what types of energy and conservation programs we will need in the future. We are also looking toward a future that includes solar energy, wind energy, and electric vehicles.
City Light has been operating conservation programs for 30 years — but has plans to double our efforts over the next 5 years. That is going to be a real challenge. It means new programs, new ways to help every household to take advantage of what we have to offer.
We want your home to be comfortable, well lighted, and able to supply you with all the conveniences. At the same time, we want to find ways to do that while saving energy and money, for you and for the City of Seattle.
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Why did I receive this survey, but my neighbor didn't?
Only 1.5% of households in the Seattle City Light service area received the survey. It would be too expensive to contact every household. But this means that your responses represent about 100 of your neighbors who live in a similar type of home. Your responses are needed to give an accurate picture of your neighborhood's electricity needs and overall energy efficiency.
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I don't use much energy. Do I need to respond?
Yes. It is important for us to know what proportion of residents use a little energy or a lot of energy, and what home features are associated with lower energy use. Your responses can help us understand the features of the most efficient households.
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Is it important for renters and people who live in apartments to respond?
Yes. Even though you may not be able to make changes to the structure of your homes, there are many things you can do to save energy. In addition, your responses help us understand the needs of renters, and how to involve owners of rental property in energy-saving measures that can save both owners and renters money.
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I own a condo. Why did I receive a brochure about saving energy for renters?
For now, the brochure prepared for renters has the best advice for condominium owners. Similar to renters, condo owners may not be able to make changes to the structure of their homes, but they can make smaller changes to their units and help us understand how to involve condo associations in energy-saving measures that can save individual condo owners money.
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How will completing this survey help me save money?
In many ways. First, each section of the survey begins with a bit of information that suggests another way to conserve energy.
Second, the survey asks about many energy-saving measures that can suggest new ideas for reducing your energy use. Although we know some things are easier to do than others, you can use the survey to as a starting point for money-saving ideas.
Third, the Conservation Resources Division at City Light is looking for ways to help residents save on the costs of energy. In the past, it has developed programs to promote energy-saving products, for example, subsidies for compact fluorescent light bulbs, direct mail of efficient-flow showerheads, and rebates on efficient clothes washers and water heaters. These programs helped put more energy-efficient products into homes such as yours, and money into your pockets. Your responses will help generate a new decade of programs that save energy and save you money.
Fourth, we are offering survey respondents the opportunity for a free Home Energy Audit, where someone from City Light comes to your home to give specific customized tips about what you can do to conserve and save on energy bills. (Survey respondents will be first in line for these free home energy audits.)
By the way, along with the survey we have sent our best advice about saving energy for your household (in the brochure).
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Why so many questions about my home, appliances, and electronics?
As you can imagine, the number of appliances and electronics residents use in their homes has grown substantially in the past 20 years. By asking about a broad range of electricity uses and housing features, we are gaining an understanding of the many ways residents use electricity and how efficient homes are now. With this information, we will plan the next decade of programs to improve household energy efficiency and help residents conserve.
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Can I find out what Seattle City Light learned from this survey?
Yes, a report will be created during the summer of 2009 that will summarize everything learned from this survey. Reports like this one are posted on the utility web site. By autumn of 2009, you will be able to find this report by following this link to a page called “Conservation Publications”: http://www.seattle.gov/light/Conserve/cv5_pub.htm
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Where can I find out more information about conservation at Seattle City Light?
You have started in the right place. Click any link on this page, or go to: http://www.seattle.gov/light/conserve/. There you can locate brochures, and information about conservation programs. You can also see the utility's 5-year plan for conservation: http://www.seattle.gov/light/Conserve/docs/Conservation_5_Year_Action_Plan.pdf
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For more information from Seattle City Light on conservation opportunities, please e-mail rescons.scl@seattle.gov or call 206.684.3800 |
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