Grid protectionProtecting the grid from weather geomagnetic storms
On 9 March 1989, a huge cloud of solar material exploded from the sun, twisting toward Earth. When this cloud of magnetized solar material — called a coronal mass ejection, or CME — reached our planet, it set off a chain of events in near-Earth space that ultimately knocked out power to the Canadian province Quebec for about nine hours. Though CMEs hit Earth often, those with the potential to shut down an entire power grid are rare — and scientists want to make sure that next time, we are prepared. Because space weather can have — at its very worst — such significant consequences, scientists from NASA are creating models to simulate how space weather can impact our power grid.
On 9 March 1989, a huge cloud of solar material exploded from the sun, twisting toward Earth. When this cloud of magnetized solar material — called a coronal mass ejection, or CME — reached our planet, it set off a chain of events in near-Earth space that ultimately knocked out power to the Canadian province Quebec for about nine hours. Though CMEs hit Earth often, those with the potential to shut down an entire power grid are rare — and scientists want to make sure that next time, we are prepared.
NASA says that because space weather can have — at its very worst — such significant consequences, scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, are creating models to simulate how space weather can impact our power grid. Scientists developing this next-generation project — called Solar Shield — have recently incorporated six test sites around the country, where they compare computer simulations of forecasted space weather impacts with the actual observations on the ground. Solar Shield, which combines research efforts from several agencies, is supported by the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology directorate (S&T). Simulations — like those used by the Solar Shield project — can ultimately be used to improve operational space weather forecasts, such as those issued by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts.
“We really want to create models that accurately show incoming space weather,” said Antti Pulkkinen, a research astrophysicist at Goddard, and the lead of the Solar Shield project. “That way, space weather forecasters can provide the grid operators the information they need to know what’s happening when they start seeing weird fluctuations in the power grid.”
To create better protection for power grids, the Solar Shield project must take into account not just what’s happening on Earth, but what’s happening on the sun and in the space in between.
When the most intense CMEs and solar wind streams hit Earth’s magnetic bubble, the magnetosphere, it can start to rattle violently, changing the strength and direction of the magnetic field in different places on Earth. But such severe geomagnetic storms, as they are called, only happen in certain circumstances.
