That overhead power-carrying pylon is a tad close for comfort. Imagine the power cuts if that had been on top of one of the sinkholes
I doubt that any power cuts would have resulted. ALL major grid lines are duplicated, with at least one alternative route available in case of fault or failure.
All but the smallest villages have at least two different routes by which power may be supplied.
A pylon line carries two circuits, so a single circuit failure is covered by duplication. But the grid's rules do apply at the level of routes as well. This is defined in
National Electricity Transmission System Security and Quality of Supply Standard, where it says (inter many alia):
4.6 The minimum transmission capacity of the MITS shall also be planned such that for the conditions described in paragraph 4.4 and for the secured event of a fault outage of any of the following:
4.6.1 a single transmission circuit, a reactive compensator or other reactive power provider;
4.6.2 a single generation circuit, a single generating unit (or several generating units sharing a common circuit breaker), a single power park module, or a single
DC▸ converter;
4.6.3 a double circuit overhead line on the supergrid;
4.6.4 a double circuit overhead line where any part of either circuit is in NGET’s transmission system or SHET’S transmission system;
4.6.5 a section of busbar or mesh corner; or
...
4.6.7 loss of supply capacity (except as permitted by the demand connection criteria detailed in Section 3 and Section
;
4.6.8 unacceptable overloading of any primary transmission equipment;
4.6.9 unacceptable voltage conditions or insufficient voltage performance margins;
4.6.10 system instability; or
4.6.11 Unacceptable Sub-Synchronous Oscillations
But there are exceptions, such as Grimsby West - currently fed by a single two-circuit line. Note that the
DNO▸ 's network is built on the same principles, so there will be alternative connection from other grid substations to any of their customers (but these may have limited capacity).
There is a plan to have a plan to build a new line from Grimsby West, south to Walpole on the Wash. Consultations have started, though the Planning Inspectorate don't expect an application until 2027. The reasons given for doing this are about capacity not security, but I'm sure that's a motive too.
