Hydro-Québec blackout (1989)
The collapse of Quebec's power grid within ninety seconds under a geomagnetic storm, the reference point for every space weather scenario.
During a geomagnetic storm, rapid swings in the Earth's magnetic field induce direct currents in long high-voltage lines, especially over rocky ground that conducts poorly. Those currents saturate transformers, which overheat and draw reactive power, and grid protections trip to avoid damage. Quebec's grid, built of very long lines across the Canadian Shield, was exposed to the utmost: its compensators dropped out one after another, and the whole system collapsed in under two minutes. The episode became the calibration point for extreme storm scenarios, because it shows that the risk is not the loss of a satellite but the fall of a terrestrial grid, on which data centers and the whole economy they serve depend. It led North American grid operators to build space weather into their reliability standards.
At 2:44 a.m. on March 13, 1989, the Hydro-Québec grid collapsed in about ninety seconds; six million people lost power for nearly nine hours, and the same storm damaged a transformer at the Salem nuclear plant in New Jersey.
Follow the research
One letter a week. First, the week's underwriting note, when one is published: a dated, argued decision, signed by Paul Bernardski. Then what the observatory published on cyber risk, political risk and insurance. No account, no tracking.
No spam, one-click unsubscribe, no data ever sold.