NEDL has 40 rapid response teams across the region whose job is to deal quickly with any cuts in electricity supply.

They are backed up by a number of major repair teams who are on hand to complete repair work which can often take a number of days. Again, it is a 24 hour job and staff work flexi-hours knowing they could be called out at any time.

Dave Hardisty acts as one of the company's field supervisors, looking after the repair teams and helping to monitor the network on the ground.

Routine repair work has been affected recently, he says, by the foot-and-mouth outbreak which has meant that many locations have become no-go areas.

Staff have also had to be disinfected and even quarantined in some cases after doing emergency work on affected land.

On a regular day he is given a list of repair jobs and can travel hundreds of miles in the course of his work.

"You take a bit of pride in getting people's power back on as quickly as you can", he says.

While not dealing directly with faults Mr Hardisty keeps an eye on the network.

Hundreds of thousands of electricity volts are fed into the network from the national grid at locations such as Lackenby and Ferrybridge. From there the power is routed along to huge electricity sub stations - called bulk supply points - such as Darlington North, off Whessoe Road.

Transformers then step the power down to a figure of something like 33,000 volts, before it is transferred to primary sub stations.

These again drop the voltage down to smaller distribution sub stations, before finally the power reaches a domestic level of 230 volts which reaches individual homes.