TOLEDO, Ohio —
Northwest Ohio is less than two weeks away from experiencing a total solar eclipse.
Lucas County could see an influx of 400,000 people, according to Destination Toledo President Lance Woodworth. The power systems in the state should be able to handle the increase in people.
PJM, the multi-state grid operator for power used in Ohio, is equipped to handle the amount of people who may travel to the state, according to Craig Grooms, chief operating officer for Ohio's Electric Cooperatives.
Local energy companies have been preparing for the eclipse for months.
"We've been talking to our community leaders, our local emergency management agencies about their preparations," said John Recker, spokesperson for AEP Ohio. "We've been looking at the demands of the increased traffic and how to best respond to emergencies the day of the eclipse. We're prepared and confident in our plan."
Will Boye, a FirstEnergy spokesperson, said the company plans on having extra personnel in the field starting the weekend before the eclipse.
"We do anticipate some traffic congestion with all these thousands of visitors coming to Ohio," Boye said. "We want to be able to make sure we can respond to any outages in a timely and efficient manner."
Along with extra personnel, there will be staggered shifts and strategic placement of crews. The bigger concern for the companies is traffic and response time to any outages.
"We know that restaurants and hotels will be at capacity," Boye said. "We want to be able to respond to those quickly so we can minimize any impact on their operations. So really it's more about just anticipating some potential travel issues due to the extra cars on the road."
With more people on the road, power outages may be more likely to happen.
"One of the major causes of power outages is vehicle accidents," Recker said. "Vehicles run into the power poles and cause the outages. So in order to respond to the day of the eclipse, we've looked at staggered shifts. We've had some strategically placed crews in the area of full totality."
With the sun disappearing for a few minutes, the production of solar energy is expected to be impacted.
"There will not be an impact of a noticeable change to consumers," Grooms said. "The grid operator will know when the decline in solar production is expected to happen and they will quickly replace that with another resource."
Boye said it's important to remember to not go near any electric infrastructure when watching the eclipse.