Around the world, resiliency matters more than ever for utilities. Consider this—In 2024, the U.S. experienced 27 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, the second-highest number on record. In Europe, weather and climate-related extremes caused an estimated €162 billion in damages from 2021 to 2023 alone. The power outage that struck Spain and Portugal on Monday, April 28, 2025, was one of the most severe blackouts in European history, affecting nearly the entire Iberian Peninsula-home to almost 60 million people.
This surge in extreme weather and a rising tide of physical and cyber threats has dramatically increased risk for utilities. In addition, customer expectations for reliability have never been higher, with more people working from home and relying on uninterrupted power.
As a result, the grid is more critical than ever, and the stakes for failure are immense in terms of economic loss, public safety and trust. For utility executives, the mandate becomes clear: how do you build a resilient grid that can withstand, adapt to and rapidly recover from extreme weather and unforeseen disruptions?
The answer lies in a holistic approach to resiliency driven by the innovation of infrastructure, technology and communication strategies. More than simply hardening assets or deploying new tech, modern resiliency means fundamentally rethinking how utilities plan, operate and respond in a world where the only constant is change and the status quo will no longer suffice.
What Is Grid Resiliency?
What Is Grid Resiliency?For utilities, grid resiliency or hardening involves the ability to withstand and recover from disruptions—whether caused by severe weather, cyberattacks, equipment failures or other natural or human-related events.
A resilient grid doesn’t just survive these events; it recovers quickly to restore services, minimizing the duration and impact of outages for customers and communities. Moreover, utilities must consider resiliency less of a static state and more of an ever-evolving journey that requires ongoing innovation and adaptation. It encompasses physical hardening, advanced technology, data-driven decision-making and, critically, the preparation and coordination of people and processes to ensure the grid can meet the demands of a rapidly changing and increasingly electrified world.
A Convergence of Challenges
Utilities today face a convergence of intricate market forces and global phenomena.
Extreme weather events, including tornadoes, ice storms, wildfires and hurricanes, continue to increase. Moreover, the frequency and severity now impact regions and seasons previously considered low risk. For example, Storm Éowyn was a record-breaking extratropical cyclone that struck Ireland, the Isle of Man, the United Kingdom and Norway in late January 2025. Powerful wildfires have emerged in places like Hawaii, where utilities had no prior experience with such events.
Utilities face sophisticated physical and cyber threats. The 2013 Metcalf substation attack, where unknown assailants nearly caused a catastrophic outage in Silicon Valley, was a wake-up call for the industry. Since then, both physical attacks on substations and sophisticated cyber intrusions—sometimes by state actors—have increased in frequency and complexity. Indeed, the risk today transcends high-voltage transmission to include more ubiquitous distribution systems and even customer endpoints.
In addition, aging infrastructure, much of which was built more than five decades before, is vulnerable to natural and human-made hazards and more at risk of failure, and the cost of full-scale replacement is untenable. Utilities typically invest only a fraction of a percent of the replacement value of their assets each year.
Meanwhile, regulatory scrutiny and reporting requirements are intensifying, and customers—empowered by technology and accustomed to instant communication—demand higher levels of reliability than ever before.
And in a digital post-pandemic world driven by mobile devices and remote workers, customer expectations are at an all-time high for reliability and affordability. Utilities are expected to deliver resiliency and reliability without commensurate increases in funding. Every investment must be strategic, data-driven and optimized for maximum impact.
Resiliency challenges include:
- Increased extreme weather
- Rising risk of cyberattacks
- Aging infrastructure
- Rising customer expectations
- Increasing regulatory requirements
Building Resiliency: Physical Networks, Data & Technology and Preparation & Communications
A resilient utility is built on three interdependent pillars: physical networks, data and technology, and preparation and communications. Each is essential, but it is their integration that delivers true resiliency.
Physical Networks: Modernizing physical infrastructure remains foundational. This includes strategic undergrounding of assets, replacing aging poles with hardened alternatives, deploying covered conductors like spacer cables and investing in vegetation management and wildfire mitigation technologies. With the integration of DER, grid operators are transforming the grid from the traditional centralized model to a multidirectional grid. This results in more contingencies and potential sources to re-energize large groups of customers faster during a widespread event.
The key is not to harden everything indiscriminately—neither an affordable nor effective approach—but to use data-driven analysis to identify and prioritize the most critical vulnerabilities.
For example, utilities can use topographical and weather data to target lightning-resistant construction on mountain ridges or deploy advanced fusing technologies to reduce wildfire risk. Substation hardening, including the strategic placement and protection of spare transformers, is also vital in an era of increased physical attacks.
Data and Technology: Digital transformation offers unprecedented opportunities to enhance resiliency through integrated enterprise systems, advanced applications, and data and analytics. Modern geospatial solutions, including location-based modeling, visualization and querying capabilities, take advantage of the geographic nature of utility networks, assets and real-time sensor networks. As seen in leading utilities worldwide, overlaying live geospatial data with outage and asset information transforms planning and real-time operations.
Integration of IT and OT systems connects supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), customer information systems (CIS) and more to monitor, analyze and control networks with unprecedented precision and efficiency. These integrated systems enable proactive risk identification with AI and machine learning. It also facilitates real-time data and sophisticated analytics that allow utilities to pinpoint vulnerabilities, optimize maintenance and respond to incidents with surgical precision and timeliness.
Capabilities like distribution automation and FLISR (fault location, isolation, and service restoration) can reduce permanent outages by more than 50%, restoring power to customers in seconds rather than hours. And mobile solutions such as Lemur provide integrated work order and asset management in the field.
Preparation and Communications: No matter how robust the infrastructure or advanced the technology, major events will occur. The difference between a minor disruption and a significant crisis often comes from preparation and communication. Utilities must develop and regularly drill comprehensive emergency response plans, including tabletop and functional exercises that simulate real-world crises.
The use of emerging technologies—such as virtual reality for immersive training or mobile apps for rapid damage assessment—can significantly enhance readiness.
The development of community resiliency requires utilities to establish preparedness measures beyond internal readiness. Utilities must engage with customers and local agencies and critical service providers before major events happen to build community resiliency. Emergency drills, tabletop exercises and public education campaigns build preparedness, while transparent investment planning helps stakeholders understand and support upcoming improvements. Utilities that involve stakeholders at an early stage and frequently develop stronger partnerships which leads to better crisis outcomes and sustained public trust.
Effective communication is equally critical; customers, first responders, regulators and other stakeholders must receive timely, accurate information before, during and after an event. Utilities that excel in this area restore service faster and maintain public trust and regulatory goodwill.
Preparation is not a one-time event but a continuous cycle of learning and improvement. After-action reviews, codified into digital systems, ensure that lessons learned from each incident inform future planning and response. This culture of continuous improvement separates resilient organizations from the rest.
Strategic benefits across the utility enterprise include:
Reduced Outage Duration and Frequency: Targeted automation and modernization cut outage times by more than 50%, boosting reliability and customer satisfaction.
Optimized Capital and Operational Expenditure: Data-driven prioritization ensures every investment delivers maximum value, avoiding costly over-engineering or critical gaps.
Strengthened Regulatory and Public Trust: Clear communication and measurable reliability gains build confidence among regulators, customers and communities.
Faster, More Effective Emergency Response: Integrated systems and well-drilled teams enable rapid mobilization and restoration, minimizing economic and social impacts.
Future-Proofed Operations: A resilient grid more easily integrates renewables, adapts to emerging threats, and meets evolving customer demands.
Start Building Better Resiliency Today: Two Key Recommendations
To begin the journey toward greater resiliency, utility leaders should focus on two foundational actions.
First, assess your internal systems. Conduct a comprehensive evaluation of your physical assets, technology platforms and operational processes to identify vulnerabilities and gaps. This includes testing the readiness of your systems to handle increased activity during storms or other crises. Involve stakeholders across the organization to ensure a holistic view, benchmark performance goals and set priorities.
Second, determine how to prioritize your resiliency program. Develop a clear, data-driven strategy that articulates your objectives, criteria for investment and the rationale behind each decision. Use advanced analytics to build a compelling case for regulators and stakeholders, explaining why specific circuits are being hardened, why undergrounding is chosen in some areas but not others and how each action aligns with your overall resiliency goals. Organizations should “stress test” their resiliency strategy and program to ensure they allocate resources where they will have the greatest impact and that it can withstand public and regulatory scrutiny after a major event.
TRC Can Help Develop Greater Resiliency
TRC is uniquely positioned to help utilities achieve end-to-end resiliency. Our teams combine strategic consulting, technology integration, advanced data analytics and field expertise. We understand the full lifecycle of utility operations—from asset inspection and damage assessment to system integration and emergency response. TRC’s practitioners have hands-on experience with the latest tools and best practices, enabling us to deliver tailored solutions that address your specific challenges and objectives.
Unlike firms that focus solely on consulting or technology, TRC offers a comprehensive approach. We can assess, design and implement targeted improvements and support clients through every phase of the resiliency journey. Our experience spans the entire energy value chain, from generation to consumption, and we are adept at integrating emerging technologies like AI, advanced geospatial analytics and virtual reality training into practical, actionable programs.
With TRC as your partner, utilities gain a trusted advisor committed to long-term business and operational success.
