How do geomagnetic storms impact EVs?

[ElectrifyCLT]

Our local weather guy (he’s awesome) posted this in regards to a solar flare that occurred yesterday. I know there’s impacts to the grid in most severe storms, and as a result it’s probably not the best idea to be charging during a geomagnetic storm. Aside from that, I’m curious if any electricians/battery experts can weigh in on if there’s other concerns w/r/t the HVB and other sensitive components in a Mach E (or EV in general)?

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[RickMachE]

You're going to not charge during solar storms? Really?

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

 

[ElectrifyCLT]

You're going to not charge during solar storms? Really?

I’m asking an honest question. Doesnt seem like an issue in G1 and 2, maybe not 3. But do I really want a $70k hooked into the grid in G4 and G5?

 

[Pushrods&Capacitors]

I’m asking an honest question. Doesnt seem like an issue in G1 and 2, maybe not 3. But do I really want a $70k hooked into the grid in G4 and G5?

You’re as likely to be affected by “chemtrails” from aircraft as your MME is to be affected by geomag storms.

 

[RickMachE]

Never crossed my mind. Never paid attention to solar storms.

 

[Logal727]

Our local weather guy (he’s awesome) posted this in regards to a solar flare that occurred yesterday. I know there’s impacts to the grid in most severe storms, and as a result it’s probably not the best idea to be charging during a geomagnetic storm. Aside from that, I’m curious if any electricians/battery experts can weigh in on if there’s other concerns w/r/t the HVB and other sensitive components in a Mach E (or EV in general)?

Shouldn’t be an issue unless you’re charging in space

 

[Mach1E]

Our local weather guy (he’s awesome) posted this in regards to a solar flare that occurred yesterday. I know there’s impacts to the grid in most severe storms, and as a result it’s probably not the best idea to be charging during a geomagnetic storm. Aside from that, I’m curious if any electricians/battery experts can weigh in on if there’s other concerns w/r/t the HVB and other sensitive components in a Mach E (or EV in general)?

Space weather forecast??

Must be a slow news day.

 

[mjs020294]

As anyone had a lightning strike on or close to their house while charging an EV? A tree 50 feet from our house got struck years ago and it destroyed a lot of electrical equipment in our house: two TVs, garage door opener, a PC and an amplifier.

 

[0CO2]

The geomagnetic disturbances at ground level caused by the interaction of space weather such as solar coronal mass ejections with the geomagnetic field induce strong electric fields at ground level that couple into the power grid. Extreme space weather events can cause geomagnetically induced currents sufficient to cause power grid instabilities and even damage to the high voltage transformers in the grid. An infamous 1989 space weather event caused the failure of the power grid in Quebec as well as other impacts such as the explosion of a large transformer at a nuclear power plant in NJ. In 2013 an even larger coronal mass ejection just missed the Earth. Had we been in a slightly different position there would likely have been enormous impacts. So the question raised about impacts to EVs is a reasonable one.

Even more concerning are the impacts of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the power grid, such as from the exoatmospheric detonation of a nuclear device. A high altitude EMP generates an instantaneous high intensity gamma ray burst that fries nearly all modern electronics under its sizeable footprint, then a lightning like phase, and finally a geomagnetic disturbance similar to space weather events.

I am working with groups modeling these impacts, working on ways to mitigate risk and also to optimize grid blackstart operations after grid down events.

As a geophysicist working in this area as well as a multiple EV owner (including a MME FE job 1 owner getting tired of waiting for OTAs, BC, etc) I've brought up the issue to knowledgeable parties in the auto industry of risks to motor vehicles from EMP and to a lessor extent to space weather events.

While it would be hard to harden ICE cars against EMP given the amount of reengineering required to deeply entrenched designs, since EVs are in their infancy it would be good for the industry to agree on and adopt standards to harden EVs against these risks, which they have not yet done. Fir instance when you see plastic high voltage battery pack housings rather than metal Faraday shield housings, it's clear that EMPs were never considered...

Given the emerging vehicle-to-grid capabilities of newer EVs, EMP-resistant EVs could be an essential resource for keeping the country powered until power can be restored, say if some east Asian dictator armed with nukes and ICBMs decided to let one off over North America...

If you are interested in the topic search on YouTube for "PBS Terra". There are a couple of episodes that cover some of these issues, one of which I contributed to.

 

[AKgrampy]

OC02 explained it very well. For the electrical grid in general the imbalance appears as a fault and relays may trip circuits and generators potentially causing a cascading blackout condition. This most likely would not damage your car but if this level of event were to be predicted I might elect to not take a chance. As far as the EMP scenario goes the solution is to sit down, bend over, and kiss your butt goodbye!

 

[machetrackingmachine]

Haha, ?

So during such anomalously large solar flare event, a large amount of energetic particles are ejected from the sun and forming a solar wing blowing towards Earth. Luckily, most of these particles are ions and they are subject to lorenz force and bends by Earth's magnetic field. Some of them are trapped by the field and starts to orbit around the Earth, some of them are high enough energy or comes in at a angle that mostly parallel to the earth field and pass through the magnetosphere and start to collide into the atmosphere, we have thousands of km of airs to absorb these particles collision. As you can imagine, some amount of particles follow the magnetic field line and end up in north or south poles atmosphere. They collide into the atmosphere and excite the air molecules. As those air molecules relax back to ground states, quantized light spectrums, green for example, are emited. That's the Aurora or northern light you see. Ionizing particles could do some damages to your mach e, but most ionic particles will be absorbed and by the time they reach the ground and hit your mach e, the chance is negligibly small. Even if it does, the metal on your Mach e will stop them before they reach your sensitive electronics. So travel in air does give you some small radiation dose, much less than when you take an x ray image.

In case of a high pump gamma ray event, gamma ray can penetrate dense materials and travel in far distance, generated by electromagnetic bomb, could be a problem.

And btw, when you charge at night, there's no sun and your mother Earth is your shield. All hail to the mother ?.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Driving under a high-voltage power line would probably induce more current than a geomagnetic storm would in your car on the earth's surface. The earth's magnetic field and atmosphere shields us from most of the damage.

The biggest issue you would likely face is a multi-day blackout due to power grid collapse. When big power transformers blow they aren't easily replaced, that may take weeks. So you may be without power for extended periods if the grid can't adapt to failures.

Minor impacts might be increased position error or loss of GPS signals and navigation, or loss of AM radio reception. These impacts would likely be temporary however.

The current surges may possibly damage the charger, but I think that's rare. The charger is designed to handle a wide range of input voltages and will shut down if the voltage is out of tolerance. So I think it will be okay. I would only unplug if a high-intensity lighting storm was in the area, I wouldn't worry much about a geomagnetic storm causing damage, the resulting blackout and lack of power would be the main concern. In these situations you'd want to keep your EV charged up as much as possible to get through a power outage.

Here is a link to current magnetometer activity if you wanted to check: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/goes-magnetometer

There is a little bit of activity currently, nothing major so far. Changes are normally gradual, a lot of rapid increases or decreases in the reading signals a geomagnetic storm, similar to a seismograph going nuts for an earthquake.

 

[RMoore]

Ionizing particles could do some damages to your mach e, but most ionic particles will be absorbed and by the time they reach the ground and hit your mach e, the chance is negligibly small. Even if it does, the metal on your Mach e will stop them before they reach your sensitive electronics.

Hurry up and get those ceramic coatings on and you’ll be fine!

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