this post was submitted on 10 May 2025
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Fun fact: You can estimate the voltage by the length of the insulators. My guess is this is around 100kV (2x 3 phase circuits), around the border of transmission and distribution voltages.
You can also estimate the capacity by the number of conductors per phase. This has a pair of lines for each phase, so a fair chunk, but not the 3 or 4 conductors you sometimes see (although maybe you mainly see that on higher transmission voltages.
Ooh a lightning sorcerer...
There are some who call him: Tim?
It will be 128 kV or 345 kV.
The more I look at it I think it might be a 132kV line on a 400kV tower, with the intention to upgrade it some time in the future. I say this because the insulators aren't actually the full length of the spacing from the tower, there's a separator between the tower and the start of the insulator fins. This makes me think they've left room for longer 400kV insulators to be installed.
Saying that though I have no idea, there could have been all sorts of other considerations that led to a configuration like that.
OP appears to be in the UK, so potentially (no pun intended) one of 400kV, 275kV, or 132kV.
That pun was totally intended, and I cannot fault you for it.
I was thinking 132kV, but wasn't sure if this is Europe where you might find 100kV (although again it varies by country). In the UK, 132kV is the boundary between distribution and transmission. DNO's (Distribution Network Operators) generally use 11kV, 33kV, 66kV (generally rare but used in some areas eg in North West England) and 132kV, TNO's (Transmission) use 132kV, 275kV and 400kV. Although, a lot of 275kV substations are built to 400kV spec (eg in Scotland), so that they can upgrade in the future.
You sometimes get this with power lines, they might install higher voltage insulators then run it at a lower voltage until some time later when the network is upgraded. This spoils the game of guess the voltage/makes it more challenging, and you end up with really weird looking connections between large pylons and small poles.
According to the national grid map this is a 275kv line so there you go :)
None taken.