The energy transition depends on more than new capacity. It depends on a system that can coordinate, adapt and recover as renewables grow, grids digitize and infrastructure becomes more interconnected. That makes resilience a strategic design question for energy companies, utilities and grid operators.
The Iberian blackout, damaged undersea cables, the war in Ukraine and grid congestion all point to the same reality: energy independence, operational continuity, cybersecurity and ecosystem coordination depend on one another.
Resilience has moved beyond protecting individual assets. It is now about how whole systems prevent, respond, absorb and recover together.
At the same time, digital complexity is inseparable from strategic agendas throughout the sector, says Meindert Duker, Partner at Eraneos and expert on energy and utilities.
Too many different monitoring systems inside one substation is not a boring technical detail. It is a boardroom signal that standardization determines whether resilience targets and ambitions for 2050 stay realistic.
So where does resilience start now? How do you add renewables without adding fragility? And what needs fixing before the next outage, bottleneck or cable incident? Our experts weigh in.
Resilience has outgrown the asset-protection mindset
Energy companies know how to protect infrastructure. That strength still counts, but today’s resilience challenge starts where the older protection model reaches its limit. The sector now runs through connected electricity systems, digital control environments and data-dependent forecasting.
Belle points to the changing European regulatory context as a sign of this wider view. CER and NIS2 turn resilience into a systemic responsibility — across sectors, borders and the line between physical, digital and organizational risk” Belle says.
For Meindert, the same point is highly practical. Energy organizations can be excellent at incident response, but response is not the same as resilience. “The sector is proud of being an excellent fire department. The next step is to build the strategy that prevents the fire,” he says.
The transition will only move as fast as the system can govern
The transition to renewable energy creates huge opportunities and new dependencies. More renewable generation means more intermittency, more grid balancing, more digital forecasting and more coordination between producers, grid operators, customers and regulators. The European Commission estimates Europe needs around €584 billion in grid investment by 2030.
In this environment, resilience cannot be treated as a competing priority. Grid capacity, connection queues and regulatory constraints all shape how quickly renewable projects add useful capacity to the real system. “If you build renewable infrastructure without designing for resilience, you build fragility into the transition,” Belle says. “The April 2025 Iberian blackout is a case in point. ENTSO-E’s final report traced it not to renewables but to voltage control and the way a local disturbance cascaded system-wide, a reminder that coordination across the system, and alignment between market rules, regulation and the physical limits of the grid, is itself part of resilience.”
Meindert warns against relying on the historic strength of physical networks as a reason to delay strategic decisions. The grid may absorb operational strain for a while, but grid investments require long lead times. “A robust grid can create a false sense of time. The physical system may cope for a while, but strategic grid decisions still take five to ten years,” he explains.
Strategic sovereignty now includes data, platforms and control
Energy independence used to focus on supply, generation and fuel. Those issues still count, but digitalization adds another layer. Grid management, AI-based forecasting and market platforms raise questions about who controls the systems the sector depends on.
Belle says it is important for energy leaders to understand who sets the rules for critical platforms, who accesses operational data and who validates critical digital models. “Digital sovereignty is not only a technical question. It asks who sets the rules, who accesses operational data and who validates the systems the grid increasingly depends on,” she says.
Meindert brings the same issue back to standardization and operating discipline. Every extra tool or monitoring environment adds complexity during normal operations and disruption. “Standardization may sound operational, but it is a strategic resilience move. Every unnecessary tool adds complexity the organization has to manage during disruption,” he explains.
The real test starts at the boundary between organizations
Energy connects to transport, telecoms, finance, water, local government and public safety. A disruption in one domain can spread quickly because these services depend on each other every day. That makes cross-sector collaboration part of resilience infrastructure.
In Belle’s experience, many organizations have strong internal plans, but those plans do not automatically work across sectors. “Many organizations are well prepared inside their own walls. The real resilience test starts where one organization’s plan meets another organization’s mandate,” she says.
Meindert adds that cross-sector resilience can also start with everyday commercial and operational choices. “Cross-sector resilience starts with everyday decisions, such as how a public transport operator buys and uses electricity, not only with emergency planning,” he explains.
Building resilience that keeps pace with the transition
Resilience has to be practical enough for teams to use and strategic enough for leaders to govern. Eraneos approaches this through an integrated view of regulation, business continuity, cyber resilience, sovereignty, operating models and technology.
- Put ownership where decisions happen
The first step is clear ownership. Boards and leadership teams have to decide who owns resilience, how decisions escalate, and which trade-offs require executive attention. - Train for roles, not slogans
Resilience improves when people understand their role in specific situations. Control-room teams, IT teams, OT engineers, procurement specialists and executives all need targeted preparation. Role-based training and realistic exercises turn general awareness into practical behavior. - Measure the system, not only the incident
Traditional incident metrics show only part of the picture. Energy and utilities organizations also need to measure decision speed, escalation clarity, dependency exposure and stakeholder coordination.
Resilience is how the transition earns confidence
Regulation creates urgency, and that urgency is useful. CER and NIS2 give energy and utilities organizations a stronger baseline for critical services and digital systems. But the organizations that lead will treat compliance as a starting point because customers, regulators and partners care about continuity, recovery and confidence. “CER and NIS2 are basic hygiene. The organizations that lead will use them as a starting point, not as the limit of their ambition,” Belle says.
For Meindert, the leadership challenge is to translate that ambition into visible action. Teams need to see that resilience has a clear owner and that leaders own and expect action. “The first resilience question is not whether the word appears in regulation. It is who owns the issue on Monday morning,” he says.
The energy transition depends on organizations that can grow, modernize and recover. Resilience gives leaders a way to make better decisions under uncertainty and protect the services society depends on.
