The launch of London Climate Action Week 2026 carried a certain sense of irony.
While government officials, corporate executives, and environmental specialists convened throughout the capital to deliberate on climate strategies and preparedness, a wealth of data pointed to the arrival of yet another heatwave.
Readings from smartphones, wearable devices, and embedded infrastructure sensors all confirmed that temperatures were soaring. Conditions were, in fact, so extreme that event organizers were compelled to issue an urgent heat advisory — the very problem many participants had come to tackle.
For Rodrigo Fernandes, Sustainability Director at Bentley Systems and a conference attendee, the heatwave underscored the urgency of deploying IoT networks and related technologies to maintain critical systems under thermal strain.
“Technology is enabling us to act more swiftly and make wiser decisions,” he remarks. “Digital twins, artificial intelligence, geospatial analytics, and interconnected data are equipping organizations with the visibility they need to speed up the energy shift, adjust to climate-related threats, and construct more durable infrastructure. The real obstacle today isn’t finding solutions — it’s expanding them. Climate efforts can’t be put on hold for ideal circumstances. The path forward is to collaborate immediately, allocate investments more intelligently, and build infrastructure that generates enduring benefits for both communities and the environment.”
With that perspective, IoT Insider examined five ways IoT networks are already being leveraged to protect infrastructure during heatwaves.
1. Averting Power Failures at Times of Peak Demand
Heatwaves push electrical grids to their limits, as climbing temperatures drive up the need for air conditioning while equipment itself grows more susceptible to overheating.
Across today’s energy landscape, IoT-powered smart grid solutions are assisting both operators and consumers in spotting and heading off failures before they snowball into large-scale blackouts. Sensors installed inside transformers, substations, and distribution lines track temperature, electrical load, and overall system health around the clock.
This empowers operators to catch emerging problems at an early stage, redistribute power loads, and in certain cases automatically redirect electricity away from strained segments of the grid. In real-world terms, this can stop isolated malfunctions from spiraling into widespread outages during periods of highest demand.
“Harnessing distributed energy resources such as solar panels and battery storage can deliver the resilience that’s needed,” notes Will White, Senior Product Manager at Fluke Corporation. “In areas with unreliable grids like Puerto Rico, nearly every solar setup now comes with batteries that kick in when the grid goes down. Residential setups like these, along with microgrids for bigger facilities, bring reassurance at a time when public utility networks are becoming less dependable.”
2. Heading Off Rail Failures Before They Trigger Disruption
Few infrastructure types are as exposed to extreme heat as railways. As the mercury climbs, steel tracks expand and can warp, posing significant safety hazards and causing extensive service delays.
According to Network Rail, track buckling triggered by hot weather accounted for over 350,000 minutes — equivalent to roughly 240 days — of delays in the previous year.
To confront this issue, Network Rail has been rolling out remote temperature monitoring equipment along key stretches of its rail network. Sensors fixed directly to the rails capture temperature readings every 15 minutes and relay the information to engineering teams in real time. Automated warnings are generated when readings hit preset thresholds, enabling rapid intervention.
The technology allows Network Rail to impose targeted speed limits only on the segments that genuinely require them, rather than applying blanket precautions across vast stretches of the network. As heatwaves grow more frequent, continuous monitoring is helping maintain passenger and freight services while minimizing interruptions.
“These sensors eliminate the need for crews to drive out to multiple locations, conserving both time and resources,” explains Julie Gregory, Regional Head of Sustainable Growth at Network Rail. “They even allow us to avoid certain speed restrictions entirely, where in the past we would have had to estimate rail temperatures. We can now confidently apply more precise speed limits to only the track sections that call for them. That means we can keep more of our rail network operational.”
3. Safeguarding Water Networks When Demand Peaks
Heatwaves place immense strain on water infrastructure. Rising temperatures push consumption upward at precisely the moment that water becomes a scarcer, more valuable resource.
To bolster resilience, some water utilities are deploying underground sensors that continuously track flow rates and pressure levels, transmitting data to central platforms where artificial intelligence models establish baseline conditions. When a leak develops, irregular readings can be flagged within minutes, and repair crews can be sent out promptly. This is especially critical given that approximately one-fifth of all water entering distribution networks in England and Wales is lost to leakage.
SES Water ranks among the first UK water companies to install intelligent sensors across its network, working in collaboration with Vodafone, and says the technology is helping the utility preserve resources and sustain supplies during bouts of extreme heat and drought.
Daniel Woodworth, Head of Asset Strategy at SES Water, described the sensor network deployment as “a transformative milestone.”
4. Deploying Smart Sensors to Irrigate Plants and Crops
IoT-driven intelligent irrigation systems draw on soil moisture sensors, meteorological data, and environmental monitoring to pinpoint precisely when watering is necessary. Rather than adhering to rigid timetables, irrigation can be fine-tuned automatically according to real-time conditions, cutting water waste while keeping vegetation in good health.
And the advantages extend well beyond agriculture. Local governments have also been adopting the technology to maintain public green spaces.
Wrexham Council calculates it saved £32,000 — along with roughly 1,000 litres of water — by empowering the council to deliver water to plants only when necessary and skip watering on rainy days.
Nigel Williams, Lead Member for Economy, Business and Tourism at Wrexham Council, commented: “This has been a genuinely engaging project that has allowed us to cut costs by saving both time and water. The sensors identify the exact flower beds that need watering rather than relying on a blanket approach where someone would walk around watering every bloom each day. Not only does this shrink our carbon footprint by reducing the number of vehicle trips to collect water, but it also lessens the demand on staff, freeing them up to carry out other responsibilities in the city centre.”
5. Spotting Wildfires Before They Escalate into Catastrophes
Heatwaves also amplify the danger of wildfires, putting communities, wildlife, infrastructure, and the broader environment at risk.
Conventional wildfire detection depends on lookout towers, surveillance cameras, or satellites. Yet by the time smoke becomes visible or a fire shows up on satellite imagery, it may already be well underway. IoT-based wildfire detection systems take a fundamentally different approach. Sensors spread across forests and heathlands can pick up trace amounts of smoke and combustion gases while a fire is still in its smoldering stage.
On Marsden Moor — a vast, open 2,500-hectare expanse of moorland in West Yorkshire — the National Trust, which owns the land, has teamed up with Dryad Networks to launch an ultra-early wildfire detection pilot using sensor technology. The network makes it possible to identify fires during their initial smoldering phase, within minutes of ignition.
Each sensor is solar-powered, requires no battery, and is built to withstand harsh weather and ultraviolet exposure (IP67-rated). As many as 100 sensors link to a solar-powered Silvanet Mesh Gateway via LoRa. Up to 20 mesh gateways connect to a single solar- or mains-powered Silvanet Border Gateway, which in turn links to the Silvanet Cloud Platform through an integrated LTE radio, Ethernet port, or satellite uplink in areas lacking mobile coverage. The Silvanet Cloud Platform delivers comprehensive wildfire surveillance and device administration.
“Fires pose a serious threat to landscapes like Marsden Moor, and we recognize that climate change will only make them more frequent and more severe. It’s essential that we evolve how we operate and strengthen the resilience of our irreplaceable habitats against these growing pressures,” said Tia Crouch, Peatland Ecologist at the National Trust.
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