It's happened 4 times so far, placing as few as 3 and many as 13 power poles always in diagonal from where I actually wanted to place a power pole. The first time it happened was when I was literally placing the second power pole of the game. I don't know if you can see the mini map that well, but it basically put down a line of power poles from my boilers just below the water all the way to the stone patch.
Below is a screenshot I took after it happened the last time. I didn't actually place any of the 3 power poles out in the middle of the copper patch. I almost didn't see them until I noticed the ones I was actually placing were trying to connect to the pole directly below me.
