Use less electricity during solar eclipse, UK's biggest energy supplier urges customers

The UK's biggest energy supplier has urged customers to use less electricity during the solar eclipse - as Europe's power network companies set out contingency plans.

The operators have lined up back-up generation and grid-balancing measures to offset an expected dip in solar power across the continent on Wednesday.

The rare celestial event will see the moon pass directly between the Earth and the sun, briefly plunging people in parts of Greenland, Iceland, northern Russia, Spain and a small corner of Portugal into darkness, according to NASA.

Britain's biggest energy supplier, Octopus Energy, has urged customers to use less electricity during the eclipse.

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The company says when the moon covers the sun "a huge chunk of Britain's solar power will be knocked out - just as millions of people are getting home and electricity demand spikes".

"To help take the strain off the grid, we're asking Octopus customers to use less electricity during the eclipse, and instead, head outside to enjoy this one-off celestial spectacle," it adds.

The eclipse ​is expected to lower solar power generation by up to 9.7 ​gigawatts across Europe, of which around 5GW will impact Spain and ⁠Portugal, data from the European network of electricity transmission system operators (ENTSO-E) and ​Spanish grid operator Red Electrica (REDFN.UL) showed.

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Grid operators in affected countries - including Germany, France, ​Ireland and Northern Ireland - have prepared measures to maintain electricity supply, ENTSO-E told Reuters.

They include temporarily ramping up gas and coal power plants, and making changes to the "automatic Frequency Restoration ​Reserve" - a system that quickly adjusts power output to ensure there is a stable electricity ​frequency across the network.

Some European grid operators have been gearing up towards the eclipse for more than a year, ​by modelling the impact of shadow and light on power ​generation.

The impact on Europe's grid operators is ​"not expected to ​be huge", because it falls later in the day, EU spokesperson Anna-Kaisa ​Itkonen said on Thursday.

Solar energy produces around 13% of the EU's total electricity output, and ‌plays ⁠an increasingly important role in meeting energy demand over the summer months, when power demand for air conditioning is at its highest, particularly across southern Europe.

Europe's power system comes under strain in summer from other factors - in recent days, heatwaves and low river ​levels, forcing nuclear power ​plants to close in Romania and Hungary.

Operators in France, Spain and Britain said they are expecting no disruption, in part because the eclipse will occur in the evening, when solar power is lower.

The eclipse is expected to temporarily knock ​out up to 1.8GW of French solar power - just 6% of the nation's 30GW total solar capacity.

(c) Sky News 2026: Use less electricity during solar eclipse, UK's biggest energy supplier urges customers