Bob Harrison

The new transmission line will take a huge bite out of the state's mandate to cut carbon emissions from the electric sector, but it can't do the whole job by itself.

A portfolio that isn't developing as smoothly as policymakers had hoped.

In particular, offshore wind.

And without that source of electricity, the new transmission lines are even more important to the region.

Mark Montalvo is head of the energy consultancy Daymark Energy Advisors.

Twenty years from now, after the contracts between Hydro-Quebec and the states have expired, the power lines could wind up running in the opposite direction.

If New York and Massachusetts manage to build out more wind and solar, it might be the U.S.

that occasionally has surpluses of power.

Project engineer Bob Harrison says especially in the winter, when Quebec typically uses the most electricity.

So there's a thought that in the winter season,

you could send power north and in the summer send power south.

But that's way in the future.

By then, it'll be a different engineer's job to sort out the details.

In Astoria, Queens, I'm Henry App for Marketplace.