A Fine Day for an Eclipse: It's Never Too Early to Start Planning for One

Abstract

On 21 August 2017, the United States will experience one of the most amazing phenomena imaginable. A total eclipse of the sun will occur, and essentially everyone in the contiguous 48 states will experience it to some extent. What?s more, the so-called "path of totality" will stretch from coast to coast-Oregon to South Carolina (Figure 1). It's likely that more people will experience this solar eclipse than any in history. The approximately 12 million people who live within the 70-mi-wide path of totality, plus the thousands more who'll travel sometimes very long distances, will see a once-in-a-lifetime event: the disk of the moon completely and exactly blocking the disk of the sun. Assuming they have clear skies, of course. Nevertheless, those of us who are involved in the operation or management of electric power systems in north America may have good reason to be concerned. On 20 March 2015, a solar eclipse occurred in heavily populated europe. how did it affect the European power systems, and what can we learn from their experience?