There were some concern and nervous employees in the European Power companies before and during the solar eclipse yesterday. It was especially tense in Germany where more and more of the electricity is generated and who lead the world with most electricity generated by solar power. The UK was also affected, but not quite as severely as Germany.
The good thing about solar eclipses is that they don’t come suddenly and it’s possible to plan ahead with secondary power sources such as coal, wind or even atomic generated electricity. In Germany the production went down by 13 gigawatts while the UK only saw a decline of 850 megawatts. Luckily everything went smoothly and the companies had calculated more reserves in than were needed, partly because a lot of people were outside to observe the spectacle and didn’t consume as much electricity as they’d otherwise would.
A single fail could have been catastrophic as it would put extra strain on other sources, making them prone to breakdown too and thereby creating a wave effect. But it just goes to show, planning is everything. Mission accomplished and the experience can be used to calculate even better during the next eclipse.
Thanks to CNbeta for providing us with this information
