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New Energy World magazine logo
ISSN 2753-7757 (Online)

High wire act

1/6/2026

News

Three engineers in high-viz clothing and hard hats, working to install new equipment from a gantry suspended under electricity transmission line connection to pylon Photo: National Grid
Engineering teams at work on a high-voltage tower. The 40-km asset modernisation programme involves replacing overhead lines and systematically refurbishing the mechanical fittings on 115 steel pylons.

Photo: National Grid

This month, the UK’s National Grid will start work to refurbish the final 40-km section of high-voltage overhead electricity transmission line running from the Mannington substation in East Dorset to the Nursling substation in Southampton, Hampshire.

The project includes structural maintenance and technical upgrades across 115 steel pylons along the transmission route as part of ongoing grid modernisation efforts. Technicians will remove the existing overhead cabling and install new, modern cabling, as well as replacing the associated mechanical fittings and insulators. This work is the final phase of refurbishment on the line that began in 2022.

 

The overhead line refurbishment coincides with a separate capacity upgrade at the western end of the circuit. On 23 May 2026, a 120-tonne supergrid transformer arrived at the Mannington substation to increase local transmission capacity. The transmission line refurbishment is scheduled to finish in November.