A different pattern for the boilers might ease this up - and save quite some space. In the second line of engines, I separate every second one from its partner by one pipe. Doing so offers two unused spots next to the pipe, great for an electric pole for each pipe. Because you also put them between the engines, all your power plant is covered by one electric pole per four engines. And on top of that this layout allows boilers to be placed next to each other with no pipes in between. This makes sure all electric poles are in reach for each other. and you only need ten pipes for 20 boilers, not 41 for 17 boilers. It would definitely save quite some space.

An offshore pump can feed water to 20 boilers. I put 10 on each side of the coal belt, having burner inserters to feed them with coal. This makes sure your boilers don't run out of coal if have no energy for the inserters. This would lead very surely to a total power failure.

Cool kids build two power plants in the beginning. One of them supplies nothing but the coal mining drills. The other power plant feeds your factory. So if your factory exceeds the power you produce in the second power plant, it only drains the factory, not the coal miners. That would otherwise also lead to a total power failure that needs to be fixed manually. You alreeady have a 12:5 layout that's perfectly suited for that.

And if you also want to avoid that last bit of power failure risk, try to find a separate coal patch that only feeds your power plants, not the smelters or factories. Because if they get really busy, they might drag off all coal you mine, leaving no coal for generating power. Lights out again.

I get a feeling I spend too much time in this game.

the power poles were not connected to the main line. that was the problem

wait, is the power pole in the top left (the medium one) connected to the rest of them that go along the engines? It looks like the only engines working are the ones that one covers, so it might be that the rest of them aren't connected to your main base.

@Klyph: Maybe keep it to yourself if you don't know the ratios because you are only here to shill for your cheat mod?

u need more water production / more boilers, i also reccomend getting the mod "realistic fusion power / RFP " because if you do a bit of research, it will produce 500 steam every second for the small price of 4 MW on the boilers, and you can just store the heavy water thats the biproduct