https://www.independent.co.uk/space/solar-storm-cme-internet-apocalypse-b1915462.html
2 different headlines by the UK's The Independent in the last 2 weeks !
Do they like 21 so much?
In New York City, it was from a switch-board at the Brewster station that quickly spread to destroy the whole building, and in Sweden, operators at Karlstad exchange first experienced equipment malfunction and faint smoke, then after a period of quiet the main fire started, leading to extensive equipment damage, studies say.
Similar reports emerged from various parts of the world, including India, the UK, and New Zealand of disturbances in electrical equipment and the then-nascent electric and telegraph wires.
These were due to magnetic fields generated on Earth by one of the biggest solar storms to have impacted the planet – known as the 1921 New York Railroad Storm.
“The effects were in terms of interference to radio communications, telegraph, and telephone systems, all of which were used in 1921,” Jeffrey Love, a Geophysicist in the Geomagnetism Program of the US Geological Survey (USGS), tells The Independent.
Anticipated effects Tripping of safety systems potentially leading to regional outages or cascade failure of grid
Transmission system voltage instability and voltage sag
Possible premature ageing of transformers leading to decreased capacity in months/years following event (Gaunt, 2014). Damage, e.g. insulation burning, to a number of transformers, through transformer magnetic flux leakage.
(NB replacement of a transformer can take 1 to 2 months if a spare is available elsewhere in the UK; and much longer if procurement of a new transformer is required. National Grid now hold an increased number of spares to account for this risk.)
Enter the Brexit !