Impacts of geomagnetic storm on Capacity of electric power grid over Ethiopia

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.