Much of the northern hemisphere looked up on August 12, 2026 to witness the last solar eclipse. Depending on where you were in the world, it took between two and three hours for the moon to cross the sun. Observers in Spain, Iceland and some other parts of Europe even had the chance to observe a rare total eclipse for about two minutes. But let’s keep in mind that Europe is increasingly using solar energy to power its clean energy initiatives. How does three hours of reduced sunlight affect a solar-powered society?
According to Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica (via Energy Digital), the expected loss of solar power was around 5 GW, which equates to “around 13% of demand for a typical Wednesday this month.” Great Britain anticipated a smaller loss, estimated between 700 MW and 1.3 GW. Octopus Energy, the UK’s largest energy supplier, has offered an hour of free electricity to its customers in exchange for reducing their consumption during the eclipse period.
Overall, Europe did not lose a catastrophic amount of solar power to the eclipse, but it was significant enough that energy producers recognized the problem and asked for cooperation from consumers. European solar panels have created negative energy prices in the past due to the general abundance of solar energy. A few extra hours of downtime won’t ruin the energy savings, but there is still a need for a battery solution that can store solar energy in advance to better prepare for such events.
Do clouds affect solar energy as much as an eclipse?
On a normal day, clouds can block the sun for hours and hours. How is this different from an eclipse? Do clouds cause solar-dependent countries to lose 5 GW of energy per day, as the August 2026 solar eclipse did?
The answer is no, because solar panels only require daylight, not necessarily direct sunlight. Solar panels can still operate with up to 20% efficiency, even in dark and rainy weather. On a very cloudy day, sunlight continues to travel toward Earth and connect to our solar panels. However, during a solar eclipse, the moon blocks much of the sunlight from reaching us.
We are lucky that the clouds do not prevent the solar panels from working. England’s 43,000-panel solar farm is key to Europe’s climate emergency action plan, and in the United States, some states produced more electricity from solar than coal or natural gas for the first time this year. This is huge progress, and fortunately most years only see two solar eclipses – and even then, they only affect a fraction of the planet when they occur. There is virtually no risk of cosmic phenomena interfering with our solar-powered future.
