After more than a year of working with the community, Puget Sound Energy (PSE) is starting to wrap up its first phase of its Energize Eastside project.

According to the project website, the project will bring new higher-capacity electric transmission lines to the Eastside. The effort will upgrade the utility’s existing transmission system and the new lines will run from Redmond, through Kirkland and Bellevue, to Renton and provide more dependable power to the area, the website states.

Jens Nedrud, senior project manager for Energize Eastside, said the last major update to the area’s electric system was in the 1960s and things have changed since then.

“We’ve seen a tremendous amount of growth,” he said.

He said the population will continue to grow and there needs to be electrical infrastructure to support that growth. Nedrud said nowadays, people are also plugging in more electronics and appliances. And while those items are more energy efficient, homes are also being built larger, thus an increased need to plug in things.

Gretchen Aliabadi, communications manager for Energize Eastside, said the project’s first phase has consisted of community outreach. She said they spent the year holding open house events, attending homeowners association meetings, meeting in residents’ garages and more — to let people know what PSE is planning to do with the project. She said they held more than 240 briefings.

“We’ve done all sorts of meetings,” added Nedrud.

Aliabadi agreed, adding, “It’s been a very robust outreach process.”

Nedrud said there were various questions and concerns, but one topic that came up many times was about building the transmission lines underground. He said for the amount of voltage (230 kilovolts) needed for the lines, “it is tremendously more expensive.” For example, if building overhead transmission lines costs $4 million to $5 million, it would cost about $25 million to build the lines underground. And this is only for construction costs, he said.

Aliabadi said PSE could easily build transmission lines underground, but because it would be for aesthetic purposes, the cost of the new lines would fall on those who live in those neighborhoods instead of PSE’s rate payers (as the project would funded normally).

Some of the meetings PSE held included those with the Energize Eastside Citizen Advisory Group (CAG), which is made up of 24 individuals representing the communities affected by the project.

Aliabadi said they have a good crosscut of people represented in the group, from local businesses and those in the low-income community, to environmental groups and residents from local neighborhoods.

Redmond resident David Chicks is a member of the CAG, saying he got involved because it sounded like an interesting opportunity. He described his experience as process oriented, saying he and his fellow group members took things step by step.

“It was a pretty slow process,” he said.

Chicks said while there were times when he felt they could speed things up, taking things slowly helped if they ran into any issues. He added that going slow also allowed them to ensure everyone in the group was heard.

“Which is important, but it does take time,” Chicks said.

Throughout the process, the CAG has been examining the 16 different segments of the route, which form 18 possible routes.

Chicks said because most people do not want the transmission lines running near them, the CAG went over the segments’ different attributes — information provided by PSE — without knowing where the routes were located.

“To try and rate them without being too biased,” he explained.

The final CAG meeting will be held from 6-9 p.m. on Wednesday at the Red Lion Hotel Bellevue (11211 Main St.), in the Lake Washington Ballroom.

During this final meeting, the CAG will provide PSE with its recommendations for a route. The group has narrowed things down to four possible routes. Aliabadi said they may pare it down further or they may end up keeping to these four routes.