Kiwi researchers looking at how we weather solar storms
Space weather has been occurring for all of human history – but we barely noticed, and if we did, it was just pretty lights in the sky.
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However, the more technology and electricity advanced in society, the more space weather began to impact our lives.
Craig Rodger, the Beverly professor of Physics at Otago University, received $15 million in government funding through the MBIE-administered Endeavour Fund to investigate the threats posed by space weather through a project titled ‘Solar Tsunamis’. So-called because, much like the threatening ocean wave, there is a warning period from the solar flare event to the impact.
“We can’t sense any of the things that space weather does, but our technology can – and generally in a bad way,” Craig says.
“The first evidence of space weather comes around the time that we got the telegraph system going around the 1840s.
“And then, with each improvement with technology – to be able to do things faster, better, etc – we make ourselves more and more susceptible to space weather.”
New Zealand, he explains, is not immune. In 2001, a transformer in the hills of Dunedin was burnt out during a geomagnetic disturbance from a solar flare.
“I used to say it was the biggest thing that happened in the last 25 years, until last May came along…”
Putting theory into practice
Craig’s team has been working closely with the electricity industry to work out how bad it would be if New Zealand was hit by a one in 100-year solar event and develop a plan for mitigation.
Project partner Transpower found their monitoring equipment confirmed the predictions of Craig’s team.
The two worked together on mitigation techniques including rerouting power across the grid to minimise impacts in high-risk regions.
“Then in May 2024, the sun got really grumpy and sent out six or seven solar tsunamis in quick succession that triggered a fairly grunty storm,” Craig says.
“Transpower put the mitigation plan into place. By midnight, things got really big – twice as big as the event in 2001 – and… no one noticed! The power grid was just fine, in part because mitigation had been done.
“It was a really good test because the sun could do it again tomorrow.”
However, Craig says the mitigation would probably not be enough if it had been a one in 100-year extreme event.
If such an event were to occur, it would not only knockout the power grid, it would also burn out equipment.
“So now, that’s what we’re thinking about – what more extreme things we could do.”
Several options are being floated, including shutting down the grid entirely. It’s an extreme measure, but one that would have less impact than transformers around New Zealand burning out.
International interest
Craig says it’s exciting to work on a physics project with such practical applications – and it’s generating interest around the world.
“One of the things that’s really cool is that the rest of the world actually really cares. In the middle of March, Andrew Renton from Transpower and I are going to the big space weather meeting that the Americans run in Boulder every year. We’ve been invited to give a talk on what we did on May 2024 because they want to learn about it.”
They’ve also been asked to speak about the Solar Tsunamis project at a Lloyd’s of London event on what insurance companies need to know about space weather.
“It’s mind blowing. It’s good we’ve got decent results and other people care about them.”
Find out more about the project: