CASE STUDY 2 CONTINUED –Emergency response force development: Huaneng has strengthened its emergency response capabilities by enhancing the maintenance centres for thermal and hydropower plants and building specialized coal emergency rescue teams. The company has established five dedicated rescue teams with a total of 451 personnel. During Typhoon Yagi in 2024, Huaneng’s Hainan branch, with 25% of the island’s installed capacity, supplied 40% of the island’s electricity by remaining operational when other plants shut down due to extreme weather conditions. –Emergency drills and continuous improvement: Huaneng regularly conducts large-scale emergency drills to test and refine its disaster response protocols. In 2024, the company organized four group-level emergency exercises, including flood control at Dezhou Power Plant in Shandong and an earthquake emergency drill at Nuozhadu Hydropower Plant in Yunnan. Through these comprehensive and proactive measures, China Huaneng Group has set a benchmark for climate risk management in the utilities sector, demonstrating how a technology-driven and operationally integrated approach can significantly enhance the resilience of critical energy infrastructure in the face of escalating climate threats. Source: China Huaneng Group.21 If policy and governance provide the strategic blueprint for resilience, technology serves as the powerful engine driving its implementation. China’s approach moves beyond incremental, one-off upgrades to leverage a technological transformation that future-proofs its critical utility infrastructure, through a multi-layered strategy that fuses early warning, reinforcement and nature-inspired design. This integration of advanced technologies is transforming how utilities anticipate, withstand and recover from extreme weather events. Advanced early warning – using meteorological data and AI for predictive risk assessment China has established the world’s largest integrated meteorological observation system, comprising nine in-orbit satellites, 546 weather radars and over 70,000 ground-based stations.22 The country has developed advanced numerical weather prediction models and AI-based forecasting systems with several performance indicators reaching international standards. China’s innovative practices have not only enhanced its own disaster prevention and mitigation capabilities, but also provided valuable experience for the construction of the global early warning system. Ko Barrett, Deputy Secretary-General, World Meteorological Organization.23 While this public infrastructure provides a vital macro-level shield, leading utility enterprises recognize that a one-size-fits-all forecast is insufficient for managing asset-specific risks. They are actively bridging this last-mile gap by developing and implementing their own advanced, in-house early warning systems. These enterprise systems – exemplified by China Energy Investment Corporation (see Case Study 3) and Beijing Drainage Group (see Case Study 4) – integrate meteorological and hydrological data with real-time monitoring of utility infrastructure, enabling predictive risk assessment at much higher spatial and temporal resolution. By leveraging big data analytics and AI, utilities can anticipate and respond to climate-related threats with unprecedented precision and speed.2.3 Technology: empowering resilience through innovation Building Climate-Resilient Utilities: Lessons from China and Future Pathways 12

Building Climate Resilient Utilities 2025