The Impact of Geomagnetic Storms for the Energy Sector

The growth in intensity of induced geomagnetic current scan affect terrestrial infrastructures such as power electric networks, oil and gas pipes, telecommunications cables and railway circuits. The practical importance of this subject consists of the fact that the networks of transport of electric energy are the most important ones from the point of view of the destructive effects of induced geomagnetic currents. Their effect increases with the extension of electric networks, including continental interconnections.

The intensity of the induced currents depends by the characteristics of geomagnetic field, the soil resistance in the area in which is carried out the coupling field with the power system components, the spatial extension of the coupling area, the treatment of neutral network in which occurs the phenomenon. The circulation of CGI in the system components produces abnormal operating regimes resulted, in most cases, with the disconnection of an important part of the network affected.

The larger and larger dependence of society on the availability, reliability and security of the energetic system is uncontested.