Contribution to the determination of the effect of magnetic storms on the electric power transmission system

Daniel Mayer – Milan Stork

   When a magnetic storm hits a power transmission system, quasi-stationary geomagnetically induced currents (GIC) are generated in the high-voltage part of the system. These currents cause semi-saturation of the magnetic circuits of power transformers, which induces current overload in their high-voltage windings and subsequently thermal overload, which can lead to system failures. This rather complex phenomenon was described in [11] by a system of nonlinear differential equations and subsequently solved. This very challenging method is replaced in the present work by a simple approach. It allows not only predicting the imminent danger of system collapse, but gives transformer designers valuable information on how they can counteract this danger.

Keywords: geomagnetic field, coronal mass ejection, geomagnetically induced currents, magnetic semi-saturation, current overload, thermal overload

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