Strengthening climate resilience- Strategies for enhancing DSO resilience against climate change

Executive summary

This report explores how electricity Distribution System Operators (DSOs) are increasing resiliency to climate change effects and their physical impact on assets, and how policy makers could facilitate this effort. As the damage caused by extreme weather events on grid operators, already significant in 2025, is expected to increase massively, taking actions to enhance resilience is not an option anymore. DSOs are taking action.

Their efforts structure around a three-step strategy:

To illustrate this strategy, six case studies from across Europe show different situations and solutions to improve distribution grids’ resilience to the physical impacts of climate change. The report also sheds light on examples of national legislation of incentives and climate adaptation plans.

To enable a strengthened resilience to climate change, EU institutions and Member States should:

1. Incentivise and recognise climate adaptation measures in national regulatory frameworks.
2. The upcoming Climate Adaptation Plan should put emphasis on climate adaptation measures for critical infrastructure.
3. The National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) should be amended to explicitly introduce a dimension of physical grid resilience.
4. The NZIA environmental criteria for public procurement procedures should include an aspect of climate adaptation.
5. National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) should be explicitly responsible for addressing climate adaptation of electricity infrastructure.
6. Investments in resilience should be an integral part of the Distribution Network Development Plans (DNDPs).