Heatwaves test the resilience of essential tech

The BBC outlines how rising heat disrupts essential tech—from power transformers, distribution cables and telecoms cabinets to NHS IT systems and data centres—by reducing gas-fired plant output, lowering solar efficiency, and triggering equipment malfunctions or alarms. Hotter summers cause cable sag, higher thermal noise, and data-centre cooling failures, prompting outages; authorities are expanding ventilation, cooling and grid capacity to boost resilience as climate change promises more extreme heat.