Power System Resilience: Current Practices, Challenges, and Future Directions

The electric power system is one of the most important critical infrastructures of a country. Recently, the number of natural and man‐made disasters is increased, which can impose extensive damages and costs to the power system. A resilient power system can withstand against, adapt to and recover from these disasters. Power system resilience is quantified by mathematical tools which are called “resilience metrics”. Currently, a lot of resilience metrics are proposed in the power system literature. In this paper, based on the extensive research in the critical infrastructure resilience literature which specifically concentrates on the “area‐based” resilience metrics, a new area‐based resilience metric is proposed which can measure the power system resilience considering the government policymaker criteria, which are rarely noticed before. The proposed and conventional area‐based resilience metrics are evaluated based on the real data from the 2012 Superstorm Sandy in the USA, which led to significant damage to the power distribution system. The simulation results show that the proposed area‐based resilience metric is very simple, can successfully address actual power system performance curves and is more meaningful and tangible than the conventional area‐based metrics for the government policymaker. The proposed area‐based resilience metric has also a general form and can be used for other critical infrastructures.

Recently, there has been a focus on natural and man-made disasters with a high-impact low-frequency (HILF) property in electric power systems. A power system must be built with “resilience” or the ability to withstand, adapt and recover from disasters. The resilience metrics (RMs) are tools to measure the resilience level of a power system, normally employed for resilience cost–benefit in planning and operation. While numerous RMs have been presented in the power system literature; there is still a lack of comprehensive framework regarding the different types of the RMs in the electric power system, and existing frameworks have essential shortcomings. In this paper, after an extensive overview of the literature, a conceptual framework is suggested to identify the key variables, factors and ideas of RMs in power systems and define their relationships. The proposed framework is compared with the existing ones, and existing power system RMs are also allocated to the framework’s groups to validate the inclusivity and usefulness of the proposed framework, as a tool for academic and industrial researchers to choose the most appropriate RM in different power system problems and pinpoint the potential need for the future metrics.

The shipboard power system of an all-electric ship can be characterized as an isolated microgrid system with limited capacity and no support from external grid. Its resilience problem is more prominent when confronting some extreme events, compared to land-based power system. Currently, there are few researches concerning about the shipboard power system's resilience. It's urgent to fill the comprehensive evaluation need of ship power system's resilience. This paper proposes a comprehensive evaluation framework for all-electric ship's power system resilience. Furthermore, evaluation metrics of shipboard power system resilience comprising resistance, security, self-healing ability, environmental friendless and personnel quality are established. Based on Analytic Hierarchy Process and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation methods, a comprehensive assessment framework is performed to evaluate the resilience of shipboard power system. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method can provide guidance for all-electric ship's fault recovery and resilience improvement strategy.

The increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events pose significant threats to power systems, particularly at the distribution level. The most detrimental consequence of such events is observed in critical loads due to high outage costs. As a result, there is a pressing need for utilities to invest in enhancing system resilience, which requires a comprehensive resilience investment framework and metrics to evaluate system performance. This paper proposes a distribution system resilience assessment framework to guide strategic investment decisions. The framework incorporates a mathematical model that estimates system restoration time after an extreme event, considering the criticality of loads, the interdependence of component failures and repair sequences, and the availability of repair crews. In addition, two new resilience metrics—disconnected load point hours (DLH) and normalized DLH (NDLH)—are introduced, which provide a more comprehensive view of system resilience by reflecting both vulnerability and the ability to withstand and recover from extreme events. Case studies are performed on a modified IEEE 69-bus test system utilizing the developed framework. The results evaluate the effectiveness of different resilience investment strategies, including infrastructure hardening, distributed energy resources management, and repair process coordination, in improving the system resilience for maintaining the critical loads and the overall distribution system.

Microgrids with advanced management and control strengthen power system reliability and resilience. In normal operation, economy and reliability are the objectives. However, for adverse events, economy would not be the top concern and focus moves to resiliency and providing energy to critical loads. The resource dispatch strategy in normal economic mode would not be suitable for resilient mode given adverse events. In this work, energy resource dispatch strategy is proposed for an islanded microgrid with hydro-diesel-battery for economic and resilient mode. Resiliency metric is utilized to guide the resource coordination. RT-RMS, a real time resilience management and visualization tool is developed and integrated for the resource coordination driven by resiliency metric. A simplified real-world islanded microgrid model with hydro-diesel-battery is used for validation of the proposed resource coordination. Simulation results indicate that the proposed dispatch method in this work is effective in improving resilience of microgrid by strategically pre-event switching to resilient mode given a predicted tsunami event.

Power system resilience is defined as the ability of power grids to anticipate, withstand, adapt and recover from high-impact low-probability (HILP) events. There are both long-term and short-term measures that system operators can employ for resilience reinforcement. Longer-term measures include infrastructure hardening and resilient planning, while short-term operational measures are applied in the pre-event, during-event and post-event phases. Microgrids (MGs) can effectively enhance resilience for both transmission and distribution systems, due to their ability to operate in a controlled, coordinated way, when connected to the main power grid and in islanded mode. In this paper, MG-based strategies for resilience enhancement are presented, including MG-based resilient planning and MG-based operational measures, consisting of preventive MG scheduling and emergency measures and MG-based system restoration. Classification of literature is made by considering whether the transmission system, distribution system or individual MG resilience is targeted. The way uncertainties are handled by various methods is also outlined. Finally, challenges and future research requirements for improving MG-based power system resilience are highlighted.

How to restore the load of power system after disasters, especially to guarantee the power supply of the important load, is a significant segment of the research on power system resilience. Nowadays, quantities of research existing has been done to reduce the load loss after disasters. However, there is no clear methodologies or metrics available to evaluate the effects of restoration strategies. Here, a method for evaluating the recovery and economic efficiency of the power system post‐disaster recovery strategy is explored, and assessment metrics related are defined. The method considers the repair and recovery process of transmission lines, generators, and the distributed generation at load nodes. After given the repair strategies, components state sampling and system power flow calculation will be conducted to analyse the running state of the system, then simulate the component repair and the load recovery procedure, and finally calculate corresponding metrics. This novel method can obtain and compare the expected effects of different restoration strategies in advance, providing more reliable reference information for system decision makers. Finally, the proposed method is applied to IEEE 14‐bus system and verifies its effectiveness and application value.

Climate change is redefining global agriculture through temperature swings, erratic rainfall, and frequent extreme events. According to the IPCC agricultural productivity growth in Sub-Saharan Africa has declined by approximately 5–6% due to climate warming, with maize yields particularly affected by temperatures exceeding 30–35 °C during critical growth stages. Smallholder farming communities face disproportionate vulnerability to intensifying climate hazards, yet knowledge regarding specific mechanisms through which climate variability affects smallholder maize producers—and evidence on adaptation strategy effectiveness—remains fragmented and methodologically limited. This is particularly concerning in Sub-Saharan Africa, where over 70% of maize producers experience high exposure and sensitivity alongside low adaptive capacity. This scoping review assessed gaps in empirical research on climate change impacts and adaptation responses among smallholder maize producers in LMICs. Following PRISMA guidelines, a systematic search identified 86 peer-reviewed articles published between 2008 and 2025 and indexed in Scopus, Web of Science, and AGRICOLA. After removing duplicates using Zotero and excluding qualitative-only studies, grey literature, studies with undefined outcome variables, and those without inferential statistics, 38 empirical peer reviewed articles employing quantitative or mixed method were analyzed using descriptive statistics in Microsoft Excel. The analysis revealed three main outcome variables: adaptation strategies (70.3%, n = 26), perception (21.6%, n = 8), and climate awareness (8.1%, n = 3). Geographically, studies concentrated heavily in Ethiopia (19%), Ghana (19%), and Zimbabwe (14%), while South Africa, Lesotho, Nigeria, Tanzania, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, DRC, Eswatini, and Kenya each accounted for less than 10%, revealing clear research bias. Cross-sectional research design dominated ( n = 32, 86%), followed by exploratory design ( n = 4, 11%) and longitudinal design ( n = 1, 3%). Regarding theoretical frameworks, 28% of studies lacked any framework, 20% employed random utility maximization theory, and 52% drew on 13 other theories including adaptive capability, expected utility, protection motivation, socioecological system, and vulnerability theory— each accounting for 4%. Notably, no study incorporated moderation variables. The review reveals that while adaptation behaviors are well-documented, empirical evidence quantifying actual climate impacts on productivity, income, and awareness remains scarce. Future research should prioritize impact studies evaluating scalable interventions and utilize robust resilience metrics to strengthen smallholder maize systems.

Microgrids with advanced management and control strengthen power system reliability and resilience. In normal operation, economy and reliability are the objectives. However, for adverse events, economy would not be the top concern and focus moves to resiliency and providing energy to critical loads. The resource dispatch strategy in normal economic mode would not be suitable for resilient mode given adverse events. In this work, an energy resource coordination strategy is proposed for a hydro–diesel-battery islanded microgrid, which improves distribution system resiliency by preevent control and switching to resilient mode from economic mode. Resiliency metric is used to verify and quantify the effectiveness of the selected strategy among available ones. Real-time resiliency management system (RT-RMS), a real time resilience management and visualization tool is developed and the resiliency driven resource coordination is integrated into it. Finally, a 14-nodes isolated power system model and a simplified 55-nodes real-world islanded microgrid model are used for validation and demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed resource coordination method.

Power systems and microgrids resilience enhancement strategies: A review

Integration of flow battery for resilience enhancement of advanced distribution grids

As the frequency of extreme weather events rises, the resilience of power systems is becoming increasingly important. This paper proposes a proactive microgrid management strategy for enhancing the resilience of microgrids (MGs) based on nested Mixed Integer Linear Programming problems with chance constraints. In the proposed method, MGs operate in a special operating mode referred to as the “preparation mode” to protect the vital load and maximize resource operation efficiency when an external grid outage warning is issued. The preparation mode problem is formulated to reflect both the normal and emergency mode operation conditions. The on-event phase-operation problem under emergency-mode operation conditions is nested within the pre-scheduling problem under normal-mode operation conditions in the preparation mode. Further, according to their importance, loads are divided into critical and non-critical ones in the problems. The former is represented by a chance constraint, and the latter is represented by the expected cost of load shedding in the cost function. The numerical examples demonstrate that the proposed preparation mode enables the MG to guarantee a high chance that the critical load will survive and to lower the cost of the non-critical load shedding with a minor increase in resource operation costs.

This paper will define resilience metrics and demonstrate their application on a sample set of end-use customers and distribution circuits. This set of metrics will be juxtaposed with those in common use for reliability and contextually situated within the grid modernization space. The initial presumption for the resilience metrics presented in this paper define a perfectly resilient system as one that can provide power 100% of the time throughout various scenarios. The metrics derived can be used to evaluate the capabilities of both existing and proposed infrastructure relative to the perfectly resilient system.

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">Millions of configurations of power-split hybrid powertrain can be generated due to variation in number of planetary-gear sets (PG), difference in number, type and installation location of shift actuators (clutches or brakes), and difference in connection positions of power components. Considering the large number of configurations, complex structures and control modes, it is vital to construct an appropriate multi-index system evaluation method, which directly affects the requirement fulfillment, the time and cost of 2-PG system configuration design. Considering one-sidedness (dynamics and economic performance), simplicity (linear combination of indicators) and subjectivity (relying on expert experience) of previous system evaluation method of 2-PG system design, a more systematic evaluation method is proposed in this paper. The proposed evaluation system consists of five aspects, involving dynamic, economy, comfort, reliability and cost, and more than 20 indexes. To reduce the influence of the different experts' subjective opinions and the one-sidedness of objective data, a comprehensive system evaluation method based on fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP), entropy weight method (EWM) and grey relational analysis (GRA) is put forward. The consistency of subjective judgment and evaluation results is enhanced by FAHP; the objectivity and rationality are enhanced by EWM based on a large number of sample data; finally, the candidate solutions are obtained and ranked using GRA. The system evaluation method proposed in this paper is applied to a case study of 2-PG system configuration evaluation, and the evaluation results not only give the ranking of candidate solutions, but also give suggestions for improving the design. The evaluation method integrates the advantages of three evaluation methods, the calculation process is simple, and the results are intuitive. It provides a new evaluation method for power-split hybrid system design.</div></div>

Metrics and quantitative framework for assessing microgrid resilience against windstorms