Geomagnetic disturbances (GMDs) caused by solar coronal mass ejections can induce quasi-dc currents in the ac power grid, potentially leading to transformer heating, harmonics, increased reactive power consumption by transformers, and possibly even voltage collapse. This talk will briefly review GMD modeling and impacts on the grid, followed by an update on the GMD research at Texas A&M since our previous webinar a year ago. We will discuss the large G4/G5 storm on May 10, 2024, and its impact on the power grid, and our research on GIC state estimation, reliability assessments including GIC calculations, and updates on our work with EPRI on an integrated assessment tool automating harmonic and thermal calculations and simulations.
The webinar was held on Zoom at 3 p.m. CDT on October 23, 2024
Slides available HERE. The video recording of the webinar is HERE and the short video of the slide 15 is HERE.
Presenter
Jonathan Snodgrass, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Engineer at the Texas Engineering Experiment
Station (TEES), at Texas A&M University, working under Professor Tom Overbye in the area of
large-scale electric power systems. He received his BS and MS degrees at Texas A&M
University, and MS and PhD degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, all in electrical
engineering. His primary research area is in power system network planning and resilience,
with current projects focusing on the impact of high-impact, low-frequency events (such as
GMD and EMP) on the electric grid. His other research areas include electric vehicle
integration, combined transmission and distribution system simulations, optimization, power
system markets and microgrids. He also worked for two years at Zachry Engineering
Corporation in Amarillo, Tx designing simple and combined cycle natural gas generating plants.