America's Electrical Grid Prepares For The Shock Of A Total Solar Eclipse
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/08/08/americas-electrical-grid-prepares-for-the-shock-of-a-total-solar-eclipse/AUG 8, 2017
The solar eclipse that will occur on August 21st will have an interesting side effect of shutting off a lot of electricity production in America as it rolls across our ever-increasing number of solar arrays.
The shadow from the moon will be 70 miles wide as it races across the United States at well over 1,000 miles per hour, from Portland, Oregon, to Charleston, South Carolina. On the way, it will cut solar power production by about 9,000 MW (see figure below), about as much electricity as produced by fifteen coal fired power plants.
Then the solar power will come roaring back.
How do you keep the lights on when the sun suddenly goes out? The loss and rebound of generation is much larger than our electric grid usually faces, but with advance preparation, the grid will make it through the event just fine, largely because of the diversity of energy sources that we still have.Nuclear plants will continue to provide the backbone of the system, and generators running on natural gas will power up quickly as the sun is blocked, and then power down even faster as the sun reappears, a costly but easy fix.
This energy diversity is critical because our energy system has to function through more and more frequent challenges, like extreme cold and Polar Vortices, water droughts and low mountain snowpack, heat waves with wind doldrums, and other problems. Those who think we should only have one type of energy, either just fossil fuel or just renewables, rarely consider the problems encountered by the lack of diversity....
