A physics-engineering-economic model coupling approach for estimating the socio-economic impacts of space weather scenarios

There is growing concern about our vulnerability to space weather hazards and the disruption critical infrastructure failures could cause to society and the economy. However, the socio-economic impacts of space weather hazards, such as from geomagnetic storms, remain under-researched. This study introduces a novel framework to estimate the economic impacts of electricity transmission infrastructure failure due to space weather. By integrating existing geophysical and geomagnetically induced current (GIC) estimation models with a newly developed geospatial model of the Continental United States power grid, GIC vulnerabilities are assessed for a range of space weather scenarios. The approach evaluates multiple power network architectures, incorporating input-output economic modeling to translate business and population disruptions into macroeconomic impacts from GIC-related thermal heating failures. The results indicate a daily GDP loss from 6 billion USD to over 10 billion USD. Even under conservative GIC thresholds (75 A/ph) aligned with thermal withstand limits from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), significant economic disruptions are evident. This study is limited by its restriction to thermal heating analysis, though GICs can also affect the grid through other pathways, such as voltage instability and harmonic distortions. Addressing these other failure mechanisms need to be the focus of future research.