There seems to have been a sequence of technical faults (reportedly, a problematic transformer, false alarms, failed signals and an apparent power surge) at about the same time in a small area of the power grid serving London.

ECONOMIST: Power industry

By taking the plunge on FMC Tech, GE is expanding its offerings in a particularly promising area of the smart-grid space: distribution automation.

FORBES: GE Gobbles Up More of the Smart Grid

Multiply that by millions of customers in a metro area, and a smart grid can produce a data set large enough to monitor power demand in real time and predict probable outages before they occur.

FORBES: Big Bets On Big Data

The reason for that is it would, over a much wider area, take out things like the National Grid, on which we all rely for almost everything, take out the water system, the sewage system.

BBC: MPs warn over nuclear space bombs and solar flares

Because the grid is a total democratization of space, with no area designated as more important than any other, every neighborhood creates its own distinct identity, with the capability of reinventing itself, like people, and moving on.

WSJ: The Greatest Grid | Museum of the City of New York | Crosshatching a Miracle | By Ada Louise Huxtable

After a series of public consultations National Grid said a stretch of five miles in the Mendip Hills area of outstanding national beauty would be put underground.

BBC: MP Liam Fox concerned over Hinkley Point pylons

One such area being addressed is how to distribute a stable electric current across a ship-based grid.

ECONOMIST: MONITOR