Northern Europe enjoys a privileged solar eclipse – El Universal (Venezuela)

Berlin .- Northern Europe today enjoyed a privileged solar eclipse and a few thousand people could see for a couple of minutes the whole phenomenon from the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, while clouds partially marred the experience in the Faroe Islands.

The Faroe autonomous territory Danish situated in the Atlantic, and Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean, were the only two points of the planet from which he watched the disc sun was now completely hidden by the moon.

In the archipelago of Svalbard the eclipse could be seen unimpeded through the sky was clear of clouds, although temperatures ranging from 15 to 20 degrees below zero.

The arrival of visitors to these islands was considerable and its main town, Longyearbyen, saw its population doubled these days, usually no less than 2,000 inhabitants, Efe reported.

Since the hotel rooms did not cover the demand, and the campsite can only accommodate a hundred people, locals rented rooms and houses to accommodate the other visitors, as reported by the tourist office in Svalbard.

Meanwhile, nearly 10,000 people were displaced to witness the spectacle to the Faroes, located between Scotland and Iceland, where hotel rooms were sold out for weeks, according to local authorities.

Attention to eclipse was also largest in Scandinavia, where the moon came to cover 90% of the total area of ​​the solar disk at some points, although visibility was subject to weather conditions.

In Germany also were many who joined the observation of the sky in events organized or spontaneous gatherings in parks, though the clouds marred the spectacle at its northern end, where the moon covered up to 83% of the sun.

Much had been speculated that during the eclipse blackouts were registered in the country, and major companies managing the power distribution networks were satisfied after having passed the test without problems.

The very companies had reported in the previous days of the measures taken to avoid supply disruptions, recalling that in Germany much of the energy comes from photovoltaic plants with an installed capacity of 39,000 megawatts, and that during the eclipse, for two hours the sun would be well hidden part.

“It has taken us a big heart weight. Everything worked out great, “said company director 50Hertz, Dirk Biermann, who explained that power plants stood at 7,000 megawatts at the time where the eclipse was higher and rose to 22,000 at the end to retire sun moon.

RWE, one of the largest operators in Germany, also confirmed the passing the test after compensating the decrease smoothly at the entrance of photovoltaics and its subsequent rise.

The networks had to just dip into the energy acquired for safety and kept as a reserve.

The German media broadcast live the phenomenon from different parts of the country, where curious images were collected, as the players of Bayern Munich at the sun with his goggles during a break from training, or the kings of Holland, William and Maxima, observing the phenomenon while visiting the fish market in Hamburg.