Brussels, 16/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - European Transition System Operators (TSO) working in the electricity sector will be coordinating amongst themselves to maintain electricity supplies during the eclipse on 20 March. This eclipse will be between nine in the morning and midday and will conceal up to 80% of the sun in Europe and could lead to a fall in photovoltaic production that could be as high as 34 000 megawatts (MW) throughout the European continent.
If this is not immediately compensated by other available means of production, this brutal fall in production from photovoltaic panels installed in Europe could be as much as 2,000 MW in France, 7, 000 MW in Italy and 17,000 MW in Germany. There is also a risk of a network imbalance occurring, which could lead to electricity cuts, according to an explanation in a press release from the French RTE TSO.
To make up the shortfall, European TSOs will therefore be mobilising according to a common action plan defined at the ENTSO-E body. According to this plan, production reserves will be increased in each country during the morning of the eclipse and in order to compensate for the loss of production from photovoltaic sources, other means of production, mainly hydraulic, will be mobilised and which could be active for a period of at least 15 minutes. Planned maintenance operations on border interconnections have been postponed, in an effort to optimise electricity exchange capacity between the different countries and generate a maximum in reciprocal European sources of production. RTE and four other TSOs - REE from Spain, Amprion from Germany, Swissgrid and the Italian TERNA company - will be in permanent contact during the eclipse to coordinate their joint action.
The Brussels-based coordination centre, Coreso, is responsible for coordinating the electricity grid networks in Western Europe and will provide assistance to the TSOs by providing forecasts for photovoltaic production and information regarding the level of electricity supplies at the borders.
The previous eclipse of a similar size in August 1999 did not have an impact on the European electricity network but in its press release RTE explained that electricity capacity from European photovoltaic production sources at the time was 100 times less than in 2015. (Emmanuel Hagry)