Economic impacts can be significant. For example, Hydro Quebec ran 800 hours in a non-optimal way the year after a storm caused an outage, in response to storm forecasts. They are down to 200 hours now, as a result of better forecasts. Non-economic steps are taken as a safety factor in order to avoid brownouts. With better forecasts, systems can become more efficient.
Warnings are free.
New technology and new operators are present during every new solar cycle. There is a lack of knowledge transfer. The Space Weather Center is working hard to network during this rising part of cycle. They have a mailing list of 2,500 and education is one of the pillars of the program. It is expensive to monitor solar variability and must be done from space.