Instead of mechanical power being transmitted wirelessly, instead make it so that each machine must be connected by a power shaft from the mechanical power producers to the consumers. This will give players more control over how power gets distributed, will add a little more challenge to professions that require mechanical power, and also just be cool and fun.

The shafts could either work similarly to the pipe system, where they connect automatically to nearby shafts, or for something more complex, the player would have to manually select the direction to use, or use a gearbox to split/combine power connections.

The power shafts and/or gearboxes themselves would be created by Basic Engineering, either out of logs or wooden gears.

Towns could create a network of power shafts to share power with the various townsfolk, or an individual citizen could just have their own private network.

I am guessing that internally, the system could use something similar to the pipe system and the existing mechanical power system blended together, so I don't imagine this having too large of a development or performance cost.

This request is inspired by the power systems in the Minecraft Create Mod, and the game Timberborn. I suggest checking both of them out for more inspiration. The feature as I've presented it here is much simpler than either of those.