No impact for the national electricity system. The company led by Stefano Donnarumma has taken a series of countermeasures which have made it possible to limit the impacts on the interconnected electricity system deriving from thesolar eclipse of this morning Thursday June 10 2021. The event involved a large part of Northern Europe and, to a lesser extent, the northern regions of our country.
In particular, Terna has set up an enhancement of monitoring in the CNC operations room, the National Control Center from where the company's highly qualified and specialized technicians manage 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, the electricity flows on the over 74 km of high and very high voltage lines present throughout Italy and the interconnections with foreign countries.
For the entire duration of the eclipse, the CNC of Terna it was in permanent contact with the other control rooms of the most impacted European grid operators, preparing and deploying, in synergy and coordination, all the necessary measures to ensure that the eclipse had no effects on the Italian electricity system.
The natural phenomenon, which affected the northern hemisphere of the planet and large areas of Northern Europe between the hours 10:10 and 13:45, obscured in the Nordic countries up to 23% of the solar disk visible from our continent and only a minimal part (about 3,5%) of that observable from the northern regions of Italy between 11.35 and 13.03. The impact of the eclipse was greater on the photovoltaic production of France, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium: overall it reduced the photovoltaic generation on the interconnected electricity system of continental Europe up to a maximum of about 4,9 GW.
Although it is a known and predictable phenomenon, the solar eclipse requires operational measures coordinated at European level and careful monitoring due to its potential impact on electricity systems, essentially due to the sudden reduction of photovoltaic production.
This is because during the eclipse the solar darkening phenomenon occurs more rapidly than the time in which the sun normally rises at dawn and disappears at sunset, thus requiring the adoption of shared and coordinated actions. Furthermore, we must consider the significant increase in renewables installed in Europe in recent years, with the installed photovoltaic capacity in fact doubled in a short time and which is currently equal to approximately 138 GW, compared to approximately 87 GW in 2015.
For the safe management of the interconnected electrical system of theEurope coordination between all network operators was fundamental, with dedicated task forces, preparatory actions and specific operational activities agreed within the ENTSO-e (the association of European electricity transmission operators), ranging from the strengthening of specialized technical personnel in the control rooms, the preparation of ad hoc plans for the procurement of dispatching services.
The coordinated management of electricity grids at European level (the largest interconnected grid in the world) during a natural phenomenon like this has also proved to be a further useful test in view of the next solar eclipse: according to the estimates available to date, that of 25 October 2022 will be of greater magnitude.
