The Utility at the Center of It

Seattle City Light does not usually get the spotlight at sustainability events, but it probably should.

Pilotlight co-founder Jeff Nichols caught up with Armando Berdiel Chavez, Energy Program Delivery Manager at Seattle City Light, at the Vision 2026 Awards. The utility submitted nominations in two categories, Energy and Transportation, and the work behind both is quietly significant.

On the energy side, SCL runs a pay-for-performance retrofit program with buildings like 1201 Third and Seattle Children’s Hospital. Rather than measuring individual upgrades, they track total energy consumption at the meter over a full year. If a building saves more than its baseline, the utility pays for it. The whole-building approach cuts through the noise of attributing savings to any single project. It just measures what matters.

On the transportation side, SCL is expanding EV charging access across the region through a growing portfolio of programs.

Whole-building measurement is the same basis Washington’s compliance regime runs on, and it is the data Pilotlight works from. A building pursuing an SCL incentive and a building working toward its compliance target are, increasingly, doing the same work.

Whether decarbonization succeeds in this city depends enormously on the utility at the center of it. It is worth paying close attention to what SCL is building.