Terna "managed the continuity of the national electricity service in complete safety and guaranteed in real time during this morning's solar eclipse", the company announced yesterday evening. The astronomical event mainly involved the Nordic and Baltic countries and part of theEurope continental, includingItaly, involving a total of about 13 GW of solar production.
Following accurate analyzes carried out in recent months in close coordination with Entso-E, the association of European grid operators, Terna has planned and implemented a series of countermeasures which have made it possible to limit the impacts of the solar eclipse on the system interconnected electricity, deriving from the sudden reduction of generation from photovoltaic sources. This has allowed the manager of the national transmission grid to deal with the natural phenomenon without repercussions on businesses and citizens, guaranteeing the full safety of electricity operations.
ECLIPSI, TERNA GUARANTEED ACCURATE MONITORING OF THE EVENT
Specifically, the company led by Stefano Donnarumma ensured accurate monitoring of the event in the Dispatching operations rooms, the National Control Center and the Market Operation Room, from where the company's highly qualified and specialized technicians manage the flows of electricity on the approximately 24 km of high and very high voltage lines present throughout Italy and the interconnections with other countries. For the entire duration of the natural phenomenon, Terna's operations rooms prepared and deployed, in synergy and collaboration also with the other European operators, all the necessary measures to ensure that the eclipse did not have critical effects on the Italian electricity system, also making use of adequate supplies of resources on the market of dispatching services
The eclipse of 25 October, which affected the planet's northern hemisphere and vast areas of continental Europe between 10:50 and 15:00, obscured up to 52% of the solar disk in the south-eastern countries, visible from our continent and a non-negligible part – about 19,6% – of that observable from Italy between 11:18 and 13:30. At the European level, the impact of the eclipse was greater on photovoltaic productions than Germany, Turkey and Italy: overall it reduced photovoltaic generation on the interconnected electricity system of continental Europe up to a maximum of around 13 GW, in line with the forecasts formulated by the electricity grid operators.
SOLAR ECLIPSE NEEDS CLOSE MONITORING FOR ITS POTENTIAL IMPACT ON ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS
Although it is a phenomenon known and predictable well in advance, the solar eclipse requires coordinated operational measures at European level and careful monitoring for its potential impact on electrical systems, due essentially to the sudden reduction in photovoltaic production. Indeed, during the eclipse the phenomenon of solar darkening it occurs more rapidly than the time in which the sun normally rises at dawn and disappears at sunset, and therefore requires the adoption of shared and coordinated actions. Furthermore, we must consider the significant increase in renewable sources installed in Europe in recent years, with the installed capacity PV in fact doubled in a short time and which is currently equal to about 160 GW.
Fundamental for the safe management of the interconnected electricity system in continental Europe was the coordination between all the network operators, with dedicated task forces, preparatory actions and specific operational activities concerted within the Entso-E area: from the strengthening of technical personnel specialized in control rooms, the preparation of ad hoc plans for the procurement of dispatching services.
