On April 8, millions of people plan to put on a pair of eclipse glasses and watch the moon pass in front of the sun. Even though the event will affect solar power generation, everyone’s lights should still be on when they come indoors.
In the United States, the path of totality – where the moon appears to completely block out the sun – will stretch from Texas to Maine. However, power providers in other states with lots of solar power also need to have energy reserves, Barry Mather, an engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, told Business Insider.
“This eclipse is actually going to have a practical impact on solar production across the entire North American continent,” he said. As the moon shields the sun, the amount of sunlight received by solar panels decreases.
However, because we can accurately predict where and when the eclipse will occur, it means utilities can plan around it to avoid outages.
“I really hope we’re all prepared for this,” Mather said.
There is more solar power in the United States than in 2017
There are several reasons why this year’s eclipse will be different from other eclipses in the past.
The 2017 total solar eclipse in the United States followed a completely different path of totality than this year, passing from Oregon to South Carolina in the United States. The country also began producing about three times as much solar power in the past seven years, Mather said.
“The market is growing very quickly,” he said, “so the impact will be about three times larger than it was in 2017.”
Solar energy has increased significantly since the 2017 eclipse. Sutthichai Supapornpasupad/Getty Images
However, Mather said there was very little energy storage in the battery during the last eclipse. “We still don’t have a ton, but we have some,” he said.
To compensate for the decline in solar energy, utilities will have to turn to other sources.
There should be no power outages
On any given day, utilities have already planned how much electricity they will produce and where it will come from 10 days in advance, Mather said. Eclipse days are no different.
“One thing we’re doing here at NREL is working with a number of entities most affected by the eclipse,” Mather said.
As the day approaches, changing weather forecasts may alter plans somewhat. For example, if the weather is cloudy, solar production will not be as affected.
One way utilities are preparing is to plan to have more reserves, or additional generation online and ready to provide additional energy if needed, Mather said.
About 30 million people live in the path of totality during this year’s solar eclipse. Igor Chekalin/Getty Images
“We actually saw it during the 2017 eclipse, particularly in California,” he said. The state has plenty of solar power.
“So when electricity starts to decline because solar starts to decline, there’s very little disruption to the grid in terms of frequency, voltage, all sorts of metrics that we track as engineers of electrical systems,” he said.
Reserves typically use less green energy sources, such as coal or natural gas.
The eclipse will impact California, Alaska and other locations outside the path of totality.
Many eyes will be on the skies over Texas, where populous cities like San Antonio, Austin and Dallas are in the path of totality. It’s also a state that has a lot of solar power and its own grid.
“In Texas, we estimate we’re going to lose about 14 gigawatts,” Mather said. According to the Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, just 1 gigawatt is enough to power 100 million LED bulbs.
The eclipse seems quite quick to humans, with the moon taking only a few minutes to pass in front of the sun. For solar panels, it’s different, Mather said. Less intense sunlight will shine on the panels for longer than three to five minutes.
“The sun begins to be obscured an hour or more before the total eclipse occurs,” he said.
A young woman watches a solar eclipse a few years ago with special glasses. Reuters
And low sunlight will affect California and other states with solar panels.
Although it’s far from the path of totality, Mather said, “the San Diego generation, for example, is still going to decline by 50 percent or somewhere in that region.”
“There’s so much focus on this path of totality, and I have no doubt, it’s a very cool thing to experience as a human,” he said. “But from a power system perspective, we will actually see a nationwide impact.”
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