On Wednesday, Puerto Rico experienced a significant power outage impacting over 1.4 million residents due to a system failure coinciding with a severe G4 geomagnetic storm. Such storms can disrupt power grids by causing geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) that overload transformers and critical infrastructure. Local authorities indicated that every generator shut down following a transmission system failure, exacerbated by peak power usage. By Thursday, Luma Energy reported restoring power to 90% of affected residents, with ongoing investigations to attribute the outage's cause to the solar storm effects.
Officials warned that the G4 storm could disrupt electricity flow management, causing automatic systems to shut down parts of the network unintentionally, which adds to grid vulnerabilities.
This added stress from geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) likely worsened an already fragile system, especially with power usage near peak levels in the middle of the day.
Dr. Skov remarked that Luma Energy could verify the storm's role in the blackout by assessing if GICs overloaded the system alongside their 'green energy' initiatives.
The blackout occurred nearly simultaneously with the intensification of the geomagnetic storm to G4 levels, classified as severe on a scale from G1 to G5.
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