Risk Assessment of Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GICs) Over the Indian Sector in Comparison With American and African Sectors

Abstract Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GICs) are the manifestation of adverse space weather events on the ground that poses serious threats to power grids as well as pipelines. Extensive investigations on the impact of GICs at high and mid‐latitudes have been undertaken while the effects of GICs at low‐latitude regions and geomagnetic equator have been relatively less explored. In this study, ground‐based magnetometer data over the equatorial and low‐latitude regions of the Indian, American, and African sectors are analyzed for different phases of 30 geomagnetic storm events that occurred from 2002 to 2024. High dB/dt values of 95 nT/min were found at equatorial Indian region while higher values of 154 nT/min and 120 nT/min were found over the equatorial American and African sectors respectively. Our study shows that irrespective of the phase of storms, there are occurrences of high dB/dt values at the equatorial regions which can lead to the generation of GICs. High values of dB/dt were found at the equatorial regions of all three sectors during local daytime signifying contribution of Equatorial Electrojet. In the equatorial Indian region, the amplification of dB/dt values with respect to the d(SYM‐H)/dt values is found to be as high as 48 for some major storms. The study indicates that significant longitudinal variability exists in the threat to power grids due to GICs. Further, it brings out for the first time the possibility of significant GIC induced effects on power grids over Indian regions.