When something is always present, be it running water, social connections, or time itself, psychologists are of the mind that we humans label these constants as ‘stable’. Blunting our brains to the ordinary. A primitive coping mechanism that leaves us with a sense of security and permanence about things that are, by their very nature, neither secure nor permanent.

It is those moments when the routine is upended, and the rug pulled from beneath our feet, that we become more mindful of, say, the Internet and how fundamental it is to the fabric of modern life. Which partly explains why an unforeseen Wi-Fi outage in the middle of the workday can feel like an eternity.

Crucially, though, the increasing electrification of our homes, cars, industry, transportation, amenities and telecoms places an added emphasis on both their resilience and reliability. Indeed, take a moment to consider the scale of disruption that rippled throughout the Iberian Peninsula in late April, when a 10-hour electrical outage left cities gridlocked, traffic lights failing, people stranded on trains and, in some cases, even stuck in elevators. Which collectively reads like the manifestation of an urban nightmare.

The invisible infrastructure powering everything from electronic payment systems to medical apparatus collapsing in the blink of an eye. For 10 long hours across mainland Portugal and peninsular Spain, the well had truly run dry.

On these shores, the island of Ireland recently experienced its own kind of disruption in Storms Darragh and Éowyn, with each weather event causing substantial damage to both electricity and communications systems, leaving more than 700,000 homes and businesses without power for days on end.

Both Darragh and Éowyn exposed vulnerabilities in Ireland’s critical infrastructure which then cascaded to impact other essential systems. Suddenly homes were without running water, while a reliable broadband service became a fleeting luxury.

A cautionary tale told after the storms comes from Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency which this month published its first National Climate Change Risk Assessment. The report makes for stark reading, putting into perspective not just the scale of the challenges brought on by climate change, but also the urgency with which Ireland must upgrade its core energy and communications infrastructure by 2030.  

Future disruption is all but certain, with the assessment finding Ireland’s exposure to extreme wind has reached a critical level, leaving energy, communications and transport firmly in the crosshairs of a changing climate. And when power is at the epicenter of modern living, as the fallout from the Iberian Peninsula showed in such dreadful detail, priority investment in Ireland’s infrastructure is essential.

Only by accelerating adaptation can we collectively acclimate to a more extreme climate through an approach that harmonises investment and decision-making across the island. In future-proofing the fundamentals like grid infrastructure, aviation, ports, and telecoms, we safeguard the spine of a society and indeed economy that relies so heavily on electrification to function at full tilt.

Investing in the future is part and parcel of NIE Network’s RP7 Business Plan which was approved by the Utility Regulator in October last year. It aims to deliver a dynamic and integrated distribution system over the coming years with the ability to flex in response to changing supply and demand. Moreover, it will strengthen the grid resilience and ultimately mitigate against the impact of a changing climate on the network itself. A crucial development in our increasingly tech-oriented world.

Especially when AI and data centres continue to grow in both prominence and impact. In fact, last year alone, Ireland’s digital homes of large computer systems and servers accounted for more than one-fifth of the country’s entire electricity usage. A figure that’s more than quadrupled since 2015.

Yet the fundamental principle remains true: any wide-scale disruption to our modern lives should serve as a pointed reminder not to take things for granted – even if it’s as simple as a sound Wi-Fi connection – and, in the case of Ireland’s changing climate, what more can and should be done in order to protect local lives and livelihoods from unprecedented weather events that are only set to increase in both frequency and intensity.       

The proverbial well under our feet can be fragile. Taking things for granted from time to time may be a very human trait, a hallmark leftover from the age of abundance, but it is important to take a mindful minute now and again to appreciate fully the many minor miracles of modern living.