Every residential customer of Seattle City Light can now get a free, energy efficient LED light bulb through the utility’s Operation LED campaign.

Mayor Ed Murray kickstarted the campaign in the Chinatown International District today, handing out bulbs at Uwajimaya and Legacy House.

“Seattle is a leader in conservation, showing the rest of the world how it’s done when it comes to being green and what it means to be an LED city,” Murray said. “These bulbs will help our customers lower their electricity bills and reduce the pressure on City Light to buy additional power on the open market.”

Seattle was one of the first cities in the nation to switch its streetlights to LEDs. Safeco Field is the first Major League Baseball stadium to use LEDs for all its on-field lighting. And numerous other city icons use the energy efficient lights, including The Great Wheel, The Paramount Theatre, Starbucks and the floodlights for the roof arches at Centurylink Field.

“Our goal is to give all our 370,000 residential households a free LED,” City Light General Manager and CEO Jorge Carrasco said. “Energy conservation is our first resource of choice to meet the electricity needs of our growing community.”

While many LEDs look different than a traditional Edison-shaped bulb, they offer significant advantages:
· They are more efficient than even compact fluorescent light bulbs

· They last much longer

· They start up quicker

· And they are compatible with most dimmers.

City Light expects the campaign to generate about 3.9 million kilowatt-hours of energy savings in the first year. That’s enough electricity to power 458 Seattle homes for a year.

“Conserving energy while creating safe, affordable and comfortable homes for our residents is such a win-win for us,” said Paul Mar, director of real estate development for the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority. “We’re proud to be part of helping the City do the light thing for conservation and for seniors.”

City Light customers have several options for getting a free bulb. Visit seattle.gov/freebulb and enter your City Light account number. Online instructions are available in Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Somali in addition to English. Follow the instructions on a mailer being sent to all City Light customers with a unique code. Or call 877-606-1599 and talk with a live person to request one.

Seattle City Light is the 10th largest public electric utility in the United States. It has some of the lowest cost customer rates of any urban utility, providing reliable, renewable and environmentally responsible power to about 750,000 Seattle area residents. City Light has been greenhouse gas neutral since 2005, the first electric utility in the nation to achieve that distinction.