Geomagnetic Effects on Power Systems [Technology Leaders]

In April 1940, power systems in parts of the United States and Canada experienced problems that coincided with disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field that were traced back to activity on the sun a few days earlier. Since then, this solar connection to power systems has both fascinated and frustrated power system engineers trying to understand how such things could happen. Pioneering work by Prof. Vernon Albertson at the University of Minnesota and coworkers in the 1960s and 1970s laid the ground work for our understanding. However, it was not until the magnetic storm of March 1989-the largest of the last century-that the issue began to be taken seriously.