Abstract:
The geomagnetic storm has an impact on electrical power grid outages. The impacts
of this storm on an electric power outage depend on the storm’s severity and include
short-term impact, long-term impact, transformer saturation, and harmonics. This
geomagnetic storm affects electrical power by generating induced currents that flow
through the electric grids. The geomagnetically induced current (GIC), which can
be in excess of 100 amperes, flows into electrical components connected to the grid,
and GIC can overload, causing severe voltage regulation problems and potentially
widespread power outages. The power outage is classified into three levels based on
the Dst-index: weak geomagnetic storm, moderate geomagnetic storm, and intense
geomagnetic storm. I aim to know the effects of weak, moderate, and intense geomagnetic storms on electrical power capacity. The research data collected, including
the solar activity parameter data from Omni Data Explorer and the line transmission
power outages from Ethiopian Electric Power. From this, I observed that as the Dst
index decreased, the solar wind speed, AE-index, and Kp-index increased, and the
capacity of the power outage decreased. In general, intense and strong storms have
higher impacts on electric power outages and decrease the capacity of that electric
power than moderate and weak storms.
