Draft. These pages were imported from the ARC Technical Criteria document (16 April 2026) and have not yet been reviewed in this format. Several thresholds are still being settled and are flagged on the pages concerned.

Heatwaves, power cuts and operational resilience

Why heatwaves and power cuts arrive together, and what designing for operational resilience means in practice.

**Heatwaves often come with power cuts as power grids struggle to handle the demand of people turning on their air conditioning. In line with the need to manage this increasing risk, ARC’s approach is to design for operational resilience**, to safely manage interruptions to energy supplies, typically electricity supply, whilst continuing to provide thermal safety and wellbeing during power outages. This requires simple and robust ‘passive’ designs for buildings. The same principle of simplicity and robustness applies to the building services equipment, for example the use of standardised or locally made and repairable equipment and components, and adequate access to local and affordable skills and services, along with business and authorities building and maintaining suitable and reliable supply chains.

Heatwaves pose serious risks to people’s health and wellbeing and limit their daily lives at work and at home - as in order to manage heatwaves and even survive, managing and reducing heat stress becomes the sole focus. Therefore, it is important to ensure that people have access to at least one space at home, at work and in community settings for practical use and Refuge during heatwaves. Let’s call this the ‘Heat Refuge’.

We recommend two thresholds:

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Source: ARC Technical Criteria - 221
Reference · confidence medium · Imported 2026-09-12, not yet reviewed · next review 2026-12-12
Tags: untagged
Citation key: heatwaves-power-cuts