Estimated time to read: 4 minutes
October 25, 2023
This is Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, with solar storms and solar flares that can bring your Halloween season to a colorful nightly sky. Solar flares hit us last year on October 31st and caused a stunning green and red northern light performance. To date, one of the scariest solar storms to have occurred in our lifetime came during Halloween in 2003, as seen in the below images taken in Houston, Texas.
What causes these solar flare storms and how do solar flares affect your property and Solar Energy System? Here, we are going to review some of these effects and what property owners can do to prevent power losses.
Halloween solar storms of 2003
It’s been 19 years since the “Halloween Storms of 2003”, and this year’s Halloween is around the corner. This was a Halloween where pumpkins screamed in the dead of night. In 2003, 17 major flares erupted from the sun and caused an outbreak of one of the most powerful solar storms ever recorded. This storm came when solar activity was on a decline and it was an eerily quiet time for our sun. These powerful solar storms slammed into Earth’s magnetic field from October 19 through November 7. “The effects of these storms were ghoulish enough that [aircraft controllers] had to re-route aircraft, it affected satellite systems and communications, and it also caused a power outage in Sweden for about an hour,” said Dr. Holly Gilbert, a solar scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD.
Solar cycles and flares
Currently, we are in Solar Cycle 25 which began in 2019 and will build to a peak of sunspot activity between 2023 and 2025 before falling off to a solar minimum about five years later when the sun will likely be completely blank and devoid of sunspots for a time. Then, the cycle starts again.
Solar flares are the result of released magnetic energy from the sun that causes an intense burst of radiation. These solar flares are our solar system’s largest explosive events and can typically last from minutes, hours, to days. When these bursts of radiation reach Earth, sometimes a geomagnetic storm occurs and is carried through on solar winds. When this happens, the sky glows in a swirling cauldron of fiery lights in shades of green, yellow, red, pink, or purple. This spectacle is more commonly known as the northern lights.
IES Texas Solar Power Solutions
Solar flares cannot travel far enough to hurt humans here on Earth. However, the electromagnetic radiation and energetic particles can “temporarily alter the upper atmosphere creating disruptions with signal transmission from, say, a GPS satellite,” NASA officials said in a statement. It can also cause power outages and blow out transformers in power grids. In early 2022, SpaceX reported losing some of its Starlink satellites to an extended geomagnetic storm of moderate strength. It can cause blackouts on high-frequency radio and low-frequency navigation signals. For the homeowner, it could lead to home power outages, loss of satellite TV, or even GPS services on navigation systems.
“Surge protectors and lightning arresters are safety measures that IES Solar includes in every one of our installs.” – Kevin Marceski, an IES Texas Solar expert PV design engineer.
Kevin Marceski, an expert PV design engineer with IES Solar explains that “IES Solar systems are protected in a way that only part of our system takes the power surge instead of the entire system. The part that takes the surge is protected through system surge protectors and lightning arresters. In general, IES Solar Energy Systems are extremely low on the electromagnetic spectrum and should not be affected when a power surge occurs (or something happens that would overload a solar system like a lightning strike).”
IES Texas Solar has the solutions to keep the spooky power outages in the dark while you enjoy the comfort that backup power generators provide.
Our backup power generators will keep your power on when the grid fails. They will provide power directly to your property’s electrical system, with enough energy to power everything or just your most essential items.
Other solutions to consider for unexpected weather conditions are:
- Install surge protectors
- Install uninterrupted power supply (UPS) systems
- Turn off the main power breakers during storms
- Have IES Texas Solar design you a custom Solar Energy Systems with Backup Batteries
- Get a quote from IES Texas Solar to size and install a backup generator
If you are considering switching to solar for your home or business, reach out to us by going to our website, iestxsolar.com, or by giving us a call at (855) 447-6527.
Sources:
https://spaceweather.com/aurora/ gallery_01oct03_page3.html
https://www.nasa.gov/content/ goddard/what-is-a-solar-flare
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/ solarsystem/features/halloween_storms.html
https://www.the-sun.com/ tech/4458738/worst-solar-storms-history/
https://www.cnet.com/ science/space/suns-upcoming-peak-of-sunspot-and-solar-flare-activity-could-set-records/
