On the 8th of November, Mark Clilverd from the British Antarctic Survey delivered an online seminar to National Grid, an energy company operating in the UK and US, titled “Managing the impact of solar flares in the UK – preparing for an extreme event“. There was much interest in this technical talk, and it was attended by guests from academia, the UK Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero, and international National Grid colleagues. The talk covered:
- Background information about what space weather is
- The impact it can have on electrical grids
- The effects of past and potential future storms
- New Zealand Geomagnetically Induced Current (GIC) observations and modelling work
- The relevance of New Zealand results to the UK
- Approaches that can be taken to mitigate the risk of GICs in the power network in the case of an extreme event
Above and below: Slides from the online seminar
