Quantifying the Economic Value of Space Weather Forecasting for Power Grids: An Exploratory Study

An accurate understanding of space weather socioeconomic impact is fundamental to the development of appropriate operational services, forecasting capabilities, and mitigation strategies. One way to approach this problem is by developing physics-based models and frameworks that can lead to a bottom-up estimate of risk and likely impact. Here we describe the development of a new framework to assess the economic impact of space weather on power distribution networks and the supply of electricity. In particular, we focus on the phenomenon of the geomagnetic substorm, which is relatively localized in time and space, and occurs multiple times with varying severity during a geomagnetic storm. The framework uses the AE index to characterize substorm severity, and the impact of the substorm is modulated by the resilience of the power grid and the nature of available forecast. Possible scenarios for substorm sequences during a 1-in-10-, a 1-in-30-, and a 1-in-100-year geomagnetic storm events are generated based on the 2003, 1989, and 1859 geomagnetic storms. Economic impact, including international spill over, can then be calculated using standard techniques, based on the duration and the geographical footprint of the power outage. Illustrative calculations are made for the European sector, for a variety of forecast and resilience scenarios. However, currently available data are highly regionally inhomogeneous, frustrating attempts to define an overall global economic impact at the present time.