Michael Skelly knows it’s hard to build a huge transmission line that connects different regions of the grid. He has spent a decade trying to get one up and running.

But Skelly, now CEO of Grid United, thinks his current attempt to build a first-of-its-kind transmission line is on the right track. And he’s gotten a consortium of utilities from Minnesota to Oregon, and officials in the U.S. Department of Energy through both the Biden and Trump administrations, to back it up.

Grid United’s North Plains Connector will be a 420-mile, 3-gigawatt high-voltage direct current (HVDC) link between Montana and North Dakota. It will require an estimated $6 billion in investment across both states, and won’t be completed until 2032 at the earliest.

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The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.