PLUSH Recap: Bellevue Has the Power for Ten Years, If the Upgrades Land on Time

Bellevue Chamber of Commerce  |  July 28, 2026

The PLUSH Committee focused its July meeting over a single concern: whether Bellevue's electrical grid’s capacity can keep up with the cities predicted growth. To answer this, the City of Bellevue staff presented an independent study on substation capacity, commissioned by AECOM. It was followed by a presentation from Puget Sound Energy sharing their analysis on where the system is straining and what would take to relieve it. Subsequently, they found that the grid can keep up, with one condition.

Enough Capacity, on One Condition

Alongside Redmond and a workshop series with PSE staff, the city commissioned AECOM to assess current and planned grid capacity serving Bellevue. They found that, due to the increase in the electrification of buildings and vehicles, electricity demand in Bellevue is expected to rise 70 percent by 2050. In turn, three of the twenty-three substations that serve the city are predicted to exceed capacity by that point. Fortunately, we are not in an immediate short term risk: there is enough substation capacity for the next 10 years as long as the planned four upgrades are completed on schedule between 2030 and 2035. Unfortunately, this gives little leeway for setbacks, as Emil King notes.

"Even a one or two year delay is problematic for something as basic as utility service for electricity." — Emil King, City of Bellevue

Where the Study Stopped

The analysis was conducted on a substation level, critically missing the interconnections between substations, and feederlines running from substations to buildings. The report recommends studying those specifically, and members are focusing heavily on initiating action in response to these studies. Fortunately, the city is budgeting for exactly that in its 2027-28 cycle. That gap is where projects are meeting resistance, and members state that no one is able to explain why it is there.

"I don't understand what the issues are. And I've talked to other developers and they don't understand what the issues are." — Kevin Wallace, ceo of Wallace Properties

The committee's ask was specific: identify which projects have to be built over the next 10 years, name what further studies are needed, and set out a plan for getting both done.

The Growth Is in Buildings, Not Only Cars

Matt Larson, presenting for PSE, shared the extent of demand. Electric vehicle load in Bellevue is estimated at roughly 7 megawatts today and is projected to grow fifteenfold to 103 megawatts by 2050. 76 percent of Bellevue's load growth comes from the building sector, making similar growth capable of devastating Bellevue's electric grid.

Additionally, larger energy requests lengthen the time it takes to get permission to develop a project, and held-capacity makes it difficult to provide ample energy to projects in need. PSE treats anything above one megawatt as a large load, and recent Bellevue projects have run from two to six megawatts and beyond. This shifts projects into a slower, costlier study-agreement track, stretching service timelines and surprising developers. On top of that, If a business pays for 5 megawatts but only uses 4, they keep a megawatt in reserve, keeping it out of the circuit and away from projects that may need it. In Bellevue, Ninety-six projects in the city currently hold 58 megawatts of reserved capacity not yet in use, attributing to the readings showing the system has energy but projects being unable to access it when needed.

Permitting, Cost Allocation, and a Legislative Ask

The second near-term recommendation in the AECOM report is to streamline permitting through city and utility coordination, and that drew the meeting's clearest alignment. PSE asked for the Chamber's help in making that case.

"We're obviously going to need the support ... from the Chamber and other stakeholders in the community to support and urge the city and the council to expedite this when it's in the permitting process." — Matt Larson, Puget Sound Energy

Members returned the ask with one of their own, arguing that the alternative siting analysis required before a new substation can be permitted consumes months without improving the result.

"I think it would be fantastic if we could somehow avoid having a whole lot of fictitious alignments and fictitious substations that are never going to happen." — Kevin Wallace, Wallace Properties