Seattle City Light to Mother Nature: "Bring it on!"

Courtesy of KIRO TV's Wildside, Summit West web cam.

I have two $90-plus electric bills this month, one for the office, one for the home--a 13.8 percent rate increase went into effect this January--so my inner Scotsman danced a jig on reading Cliff Mass's weather report on our blustery weather:

This is exactly the kind of pattern that lays down lots of snow. Below is the forecast 24-h snow amounts ending 5 AM Tuesday morning...some locations get well over a foot. City Light should think about revoking their electricity surcharge.

Mass is probably being a little facetious there, but I spoke with City Light's Scott Thomsen about it anyway. You never know when you might learn something. Besides, Crystal got 26 inches the last 48 hours. That's not nothing.

Earlier this month, Seattle City Light announced that thanks to an anemic snowpack (the lowest in 20 years), the amount of hydropower they could generate would likely be limited. With no "extra" power to sell, they were forecasting a loss in revenue of $70 million. On March 22, the City Council approved a 4.5 percent rate increase, to go into a rate stabilization account.

The rate stabilization account, claiming $2 extra per "average" customer per month, is supposed to create a $100 million fund that Seattle City Light can use to combat volatility, either in power costs or in snowpack. Once the account reaches $100 million, the surcharge goes away.

Thomsen will take the extra foot or two of new snow, but, he says, given that the snowpack was at 66 percent of normal, it's going to take a lot more than a single storm to change City Light's financial outlook. City Light's Pend Oreille dam, for instance, is a run-of-the-river dam with no reservoir, and is completely dependent on snowpack doing its time-release thing properly. It also produces about half of Seattle City Light's power.

In short, don't expect a smaller electric bill. But definitely get out there and enjoy the powder.