Space: Two Coronal Mass Ejections are released
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The study was undertaken by physicist Dr Jiaojiao Zhang of the State Key Laboratory of Space Weather in Beijing and her colleagues. They said: “The Sun is not a particularly peaceful entity. Solar storms can generate geomagnetically induced currents in high-voltage power transmission systems, which can damage transformers and even cause the whole system to collapse.”
In their study, the researchers set out to explore the impact of a solar superstorm on the Chinese Guangdong 500 kV power grid.
To do this, they combined three separate models – one that simulates space weather, one that models ground conductivity and one that replicates the power grid itself.
From this, they were able to measure the response of the power grid to a real-world coronal mass ejection (CME)— a potent cloud of charged particles and electromagnetic fluctuations — that missed the Earth by just nine days back in the July of 2012 and was measured by the STEREO-A solar observatory satellite which it did strike.
The strength of this solar storm was comparable to that of the “Carrington Event” of September 1859, which induced such currents in telegraph cables that their pylons sparked, operators received electric shocks and lines functioned even with their power cut.
Carrington Event-level storms are thought to occur roughly once every 500 years.
According to the team, the geomagnetically induced currents that would have been produced in the Guangdong grid by the July 2012 storm reached as high as 400 amps, more than three times that measured in a storm that actually hit the grid back in November 2004.
(This may be an underestimation in coastal locations, they noted, as the abrupt change in conductivity at the ocean’s edge substantially enhances the electric field along the shore.)
The researchers modelled the impact of these currents on 54 grid substations and compared them with the currents that famously took out the Hydro-Québec power grid in the March of 1989 and left seven million Canadians without power for more than nine hours.
They said: “The geomagnetically induced current flowing through the Guangdong 500 kV power grid during the 23 July 2012 solar superstorm are comparable to or even larger than those in the Hydro-Québec 735 kV power grid during the March 1989 storm.”
Noting that the impacts of solar storms are typically stronger at higher latitudes, the team added: “We showed that even a low-latitude power grid may collapse under the impact of a solar superstorm.
“Consequently, without sufficient preparation, the consequences of a solar superstorm for power grids worldwide could be devastating.”
The full findings of the study were published in the journal Space Weather.
Fortunately for humanity, strong geomagnetic storms of the scale of the Carrington Event are relatively few and far between — although smaller events are more common.
In a second study published this week, physicist Zoe Lewis of Lancaster University and her colleagues examined the long term impact of such lower-level geomagnetic activity on 13 power station transformers in the UK between 2010–2015.
Specifically, the team looked at data from dissolved gas analyses, which provide an assessment of transformer health based on the concentrations of different gases — derived from the breakdown of insulating materials — dissolved in transformer coolant oil
They compared this data on transformer health with increased periods of local and global space weather to see if there was an association between solar storms and damage to the power systems.
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Reassuringly, the researchers found no link between low-level geomagnetic activity and transformer degradation — at least, not during the Sun’s recent quiescent period.
They said: “The results of this study provide evidence that lower-level geomagnetic activity is unlikely to cause significant damage to modern transformers in the UK.
“Damage may only occur during more severe and rare geomagnetic storms.”
The full findings of the second study were also published in the journal Space Weather.
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