Grid and digital resilience tactics to face fatal heatwaves

The devastating impact of extreme weather has been highlighted in Spain in recent days as wildfires claimed the lives of 13 people.

At this stage, the cause of the fire is believed to be a fallen power cable that ignited vegetation that had been turned into a tinderbox by the extreme heat that has hit much of Europe.

And today, scientists at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine have revealed the results of the first rapid study to estimate the number of deaths linked to climate change for a heatwave.

They conclude that “human-caused climate change intensified the recent European heatwave and increased the number of heat deaths by about 1,500 in 12 European cities”.

They break down these deaths as 317 in Milan, 286 in Barcelona, 235 in Paris, 171 in London, 164 in Rome, 108 in Madrid, 96 in Athens, 47 in Budapest, 31 in Zagreb, 21 in Frankfurt, 21 in Lisbon and 6 in Sassari in Italy.

Climate change

Dr Clair Barnes, research associate in extreme weather and climate change at Imperial College London, said of the UK: “It’s time we woke up to the fact that we now live in a country with dangerously hot summers. To protect people during future extremes, we must urgently adapt to the reality of the climate we now have, and double down on global efforts to reach net zero emissions to stop this from getting worse.”

Laurent Bataille, executive vice-president of Europe operations at Schneider Electric, says there is now an urgency to deal with the inadequacy of Europe’s old building stock to deal with heat.

"As Europe faces temperatures exceeding 40°C, its ageing buildings are being pushed to their limit.  At the current rate of building renovation, it will take more than a century to upgrade the entire EU stock.”

Exclusive:
'Complacency is Europe’s biggest energy risk' says Laurent Bataille
Heatwaves expose solar storage and housing design problems

Bataille warns that “without a major acceleration in energy performance upgrades and retrofits, most homes, schools and workplaces won't be able to cope with rising temperatures”.  

However, he adds that “technology already exists to improve internal environments while reducing energy-related emissions”.

“Electrify end‑uses, such as swapping gas boilers for heat pumps, and layering in building automation and control systems, smart meters and energy management, can rapidly cut gas consumption.”

Digitising buildings

But Bataille stresses that “this isn’t just an energy story. Digitalizing buildings gives people more day‑to‑day comfort and control, when at home or elsewhere; helps keep indoor temperatures stable during heatwaves through more precise temperature controls; and makes buildings more resilient to the changing climate.” 

But he adds that “to make this mainstream, Europe must back it with targeted policy. The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive is designed to unlock this transformation.

“But to deliver energy-efficient retrofits and digitalization at scale, Europe needs stronger political will and a clear, long-term renovation pipeline that gives owners, investors and suppliers the confidence to accelerate energy-efficient upgrades."

Digitalisation exclusives
Powering the most digitally complex World Cup ever
Cybersecurity and digital infrastructure resilience for a complex grid

Iain Davidson from connectivity company Wireless Logic also highlights the link between digitalisation and the current heatwave, noting how core digital infrastructure vulnerable to outages and downtime.

“The impact of IoT downtime caused by extreme heat is widespread – the IoT is everywhere, underpinning critical industries like energy, transport and healthcare, sharing data from sensors, monitors, trackers and more.”

IoT reliance

He highlights a report published in June which forecast that global connections will reach more than 40 billion by 2034, and warns that while “daily reliance on IoT will continue to grow, unfortunately this dependence rises in parallel with the extreme temperatures we are witnessing across Europe”.   

“And it’s not only heat,” he adds. “Climate change drives a full spectrum of extreme weather events. Storms and prolonged rainfall are now becoming routine in the UK and across Europe and present an equally serious threat to connected infrastructure.”

He says recent cases have seen equipment submerged in “areas with no flood history or flood risk, and severing the connectivity that critical operations depend on”. 

“When these events force systems offline, safety-critical operations are put at risk. This can impact everything from energy grids to hospital monitoring systems, street lighting, and security.”

Disaster recovery

Davidson says that as Europe’s weather continues to change, “IoT providers must build resilience from the outset. While it’s impossible to eliminate the risk of outages entirely, enterprises can take significant steps to reduce their likelihood and impact.”

“That means comprehensive disaster recovery, data backup and restoration plans. It means multiple layers of failover including backup power, alternative networks and redundant SIM capabilities, to keep sensitive data moving.”

And he adds that it also means “treating cybersecurity as part of the same resilience equation”.

Davidson says IoT devices are now the most frequently attacked in the UK, targeted on average 178 times a day.

“A device weakened or knocked offline by physical disruption becomes a far easier target. Resilience and security cannot be planned in isolation. 

“Ultimately, minimising the impact of extreme weather comes down to proactive planning at the design stage.” 

Exposing limits

Also warning of the dangers of extreme heat is Georg Rute, chief executive officer of Gridraven, who previously led digitalisation at Estonia's national grid, Elering.

“Extreme weather conditions push the grid to its limits and expose problems that might have gone unnoticed for years,” said Rute.

“In France during the recent heatwave, around 68,000 homes lost power as a substation overheated. Thankfully this was a localised incident. In the worst case, such losses could cause a cascading failure and bring down the entire grid.”

Rute says that just like any other electrical equipment, power lines and transformers get hot when they operate. “Under normal conditions there are comfortable safety margins. But heatwaves bring a quadruple whammy: high power consumption, high solar production, low wind generation and outages of some thermal power plants.

“This may cause very high power flow in parts of the grid that rarely experience it and overheat older or poorly maintained equipment.”

He says with Europe undertaking record investments to modernise and strengthen the grid, planners “must find an optimum balance between cost and the likelihood of loss of load”.

“A grid that never fails would be too expensive to build. It is exactly during extreme conditions when this trade-off becomes visible. It would be possible, but too expensive to overbuild every part of the grid so that it would almost never fail during a heatwave.”