Residential Rates

City Light rates are more affordable compared to many cities in the country because we're a public, not-for-profit utility and we primarily rely on low-cost, renewable, carbon-free hydroelectricity. We focus on providing stable, predictable rates that allow us to deliver sustainable, reliable, and affordable service.

Your bill charges include:

1. Base Service Charge: This is a charge you are billed regardless of your energy usage to cover costs associated with billing and customer service operations.
2. Energy Charge: The portion of your bill based on the energy (kWh) consumed during the billing period. There are 2 block rates you may see on your bill:
   • 1st block – the lower rate you will pay for the first 10 kWh used per day in a summer month (April - September) and the first 16 kWh used per day in a winter month (October - March). When your bill period crosses over from summer to winter, or vice versa, the amounts are prorated by the number of days on that seasonal rate. Most residential customers are billed bi-monthly at approximately 60 days per billing cycle.
   • 2nd block – a slightly higher rate charged after you’ve reached the maximum on the 1st block rate.

Helpful Definitions

• Watt: a measurement of the rate of electricity use, the most common unit of measurement is 1,000 watts, or 1 kilowatt (kW)
• Kilowatt‐hour (kWh): a measure of the flow of electricity over an hour – 10, 100‐watt lights on for 1 hour = 1 kWh

Current Residential Rates

*1st block equals 300 kWh per month from April - September and 480 kWh per month from October - March.

Residential Undergrounding Rates

Burien and Shoreline elected to underground distribution lines on some of their arterial streets. Instead of the jurisdiction paying for the work upfront, the undergrounding cost is recovered from all customers in that jurisdiction via a kWh undergrounding charge according to the table below: