In the French city of Nantes, school windows have been coated with chalk to keep classrooms cool. In Berlin and Budapest, police and firefighters recently turned water cannons on in city squares to spray cooling mist over residents.

Across Europe, where many buildings and homes are not built for hot weather, these are some of the measures deployed in the fight against a scorching summer as temperatures soar past 40°C. The latest heatwave has already been linked to at least 3,700 excess deaths – a stark reminder that what was once considered extreme weather is quickly becoming the new normal.

Southeast Asia is feeling the heat as well. In Malaysia and Indonesia, fewer e-hailing riders are taking up delivery orders, deterred by intense mid-day temperatures. Regional statistics further reveal a grave trend: between 2000 and 2009, Southeast Asia experienced two to three significant heat wave events a year; by 2010-2019, that figure had doubled to four to six events a year, before climbing to eight to twelve annually between 2020 and 2024, with durations extending to as long as four weeks.

As these climate extremes become more frequent, they are also reinforcing the importance of climate-resilient infrastructure, including electricity networks that can maintain reliable supply through increasingly unpredictable conditions.

Hotter days, heavier loads

Although Southeast Asia’s infrastructure, unlike Europe’s, is built to withstand high temperatures and humidity, utilities and governments face a different challenge, requiring them to keep electricity supply apace with rising demand. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), cooling demand in buildings is now the fastest-growing source of electricity consumption in the region. Cooling alone is projected to account for almost one-third of the region’s growth in electricity use by 2035.

Many of Southeast Asia’s offices, buildings, and public spaces such as malls are equipped with state-of-the-art air conditioning to combat tropical heat, but cranking the AC up across the entire country consequently puts significant strain on national grids. On 8 June 2026, for example, Peninsular Malaysia recorded peak grid demand of 21,583 MW, illustrating the broader rise in electricity demand across the region as cooling needs grow alongside expanding industrial activity.

For governments and utilities, the challenge is to ensure power systems remain reliable as extreme weather becomes more frequent and demand peaks grow higher. This requires greater investment in climate-resilient infrastructure and long-term planning to strengthen the grid ahead of future climate and demand pressures.

the challenge is to ensure power systems remain reliable as extreme weather becomes more frequent and demand peaks grow higher

The challenge further extends beyond heatwaves. Malaysia is also experiencing structural growth in electricity demand driven by urbanisation, electrification, and increasing digitalisation of everyday life – from working and learning online to connected homes and devices, all of which compound the effects of rising temperatures.

According to Hong Leong Investment Bank Research, electricity demand growth has significantly outpaced earlier projections. Against this backdrop, this showcases the need for planners to expand both generation and network capacity ahead of future needs. Malaysia has so far avoided the acute electricity shortages seen in some parts of the world, but these factors are steadily reshaping how the country’s power system is planned and operated.

Weathering climate extremes across ASEAN

According to the IEA’s Southeast Asia Energy Outlook 2026, more than 52 gigawatts (GW) of thermal power capacity and nearly 4GW of solar photovoltaic capacity across Southeast Asia are already located in areas vulnerable to flooding of at least one metre. The report warns that climate change is expected to intensify heavy rainfall and expand floodplain exposure, increasing risks not only to power plants but also to substations, transmission lines, and fuel supply infrastructure.

In response, ASEAN Member States are also simultaneously planning for a future where floods, lightning strikes, tropical storms and earthquakes threaten the reliability of power systems. The Philippines, geographically located on the Western North Pacific typhoon belt, is prone to frequent earthquakes as well as around 20 tropical cyclones entering the country’s area of responsibility each year. These disasters severely disrupt electricity infrastructure, making grid resilience a critical national priority.

To combat these risks, the Philippines’ National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) has a comprehensive disaster-preparedness, response and business-continuity programme, which includes multiple storm-tracking and weather-alert systems, as well as emergency restoration and reinforcement of transmission infrastructure. Their 2024–2050 Transmission Development Plan says NGCP is designing new overhead transmission lines in Luzon to withstand gusts of up to 300 km/h, while considering high-voltage underground cables for critical transmission lines in areas vulnerable to typhoons and storm surges.

Likewise, Indonesia, situated along the active Pacific Ring of Fire and spanning more than 17,000 islands, has plans to expand interconnected submarine cables, and Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) is expanding inter-island transmission infrastructure and developing an end-to-end Smart Grid to create a more resilient, reliable, and interconnected power system. In Malaysia and Vietnam, northeast monsoon floods and rainfall patterns are becoming more erratic and increasingly occurring outside the traditional monsoon season, exposing substations to prolonged flood risk.

Recently, Vietnam Electricity (EVN) instructed utilities to review transmission lines and substations at risk from flooding and landslides, and to prepare safe-disconnection procedures where necessary during storms, lightning, and flooding. It also told units affected by previous flooding, particularly in Lai Chau where 31 distribution substations and 2,276 customers were affected, to address remaining vulnerabilities before the next rainfall event.

Similarly, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) is actively strengthening and hardening the grid through targeted upgrades to substations. Key adaptation strategies include deploying data-driven analysis of high-risk areas, elevating switchgear, raising substation base levels, installing flood walls or flood gates, and relocating facilities where necessary. The utility’s Climate Adaptation Strategy states that “climate risk exposure data is updated annually…to allow TNB to stay ahead of emerging climate-related risks”, and that adaptation plans are put into action with careful consideration of factors such as criticality of the equipment and the potential impact on customers, budget, and resources.

Together, these measures reflect a broader shift towards strengthening the grid for a future where extreme weather is no longer an occasional event, but an increasingly important consideration in long-term infrastructure planning.

Climate resilience, before the storm

Meeting rising electricity demand is only one side of the equation. The other is ensuring that the region’s grid and energy infrastructure can cope with increasingly extreme climate. Tomorrow’s grid must be capable of responding to increasingly volatile weather, rapidly changing demand, and new sources of generation all at once. This means ensuring the grid is prepared at all times to accommodate sudden surges in electricity demand, even when they occur outside anticipated peak periods.

For Malaysia and its ASEAN neighbours, preparing for this future will require stronger infrastructure and smarter grid technologies that places resilience at the centre of every investment. As climate change reshapes weather patterns across Southeast Asia, the most resilient power systems will be those that can withstand increasingly unpredictable conditions while continuing to power homes and economies reliably.