Recent years have seen a surge in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events globally, causing significant casualties, displacements and economic losses. Global examples vividly illustrate the urgency of bolstering the climate resilience of power systems as a means of mitigating the disruptive impacts of extreme weather events on critical infrastructure.

For example, Hurricane Helene’s assault on the United States, Mexico and Cuba in September 2024 caused over USD 55-billion of damage, with widespread power outages affecting over 4.7-million people. The frequency, intensity, unpredictability and duration of natural disasters – due to climate change – are projected to keep increasing in the future. 

Climate disasters or extreme weather events are considered high-impact low-frequency (HILF) or high- impact low-probability (HILP) events. A HILP event cannot easily be anticipated; it occurs randomly and unexpectedly, and is characterised by having immediate and significant impacts (European Commission, 2022a).

Extreme weather events pose a major threat to all segments of the power system and ultimately can cause power outages, i.e. the loss of power supply to the end user. These events not only cause power outages and affect assets, but also trigger a chain of consequences, including lost productivity and supply chain collapse. Besides extreme weather events, changes in climate such as prolonged heat waves, cold snaps and droughts also cause harm to power systems.

The escalating impact of climate change has made adaptation a priority in national climate plans (such as nationally determined contributions [NDCs] and long-term low emissions development strategies [LT-LEDS]), particularly for least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing states (SIDS), which face heightened vulnerability to extreme weather events, with fewer resources to maintain or increase their resilience.

However, climate resilience is a global issue. Even regions that are not as adversely affected by events such as hurricanes and storms are often affected by climate change effects such as periods of extreme temperatures. Additionally, vulnerabilities to extreme weather events and climate change are heightened by ageing infrastructure worldwide.

Report by the International Renewable Energy Agency