Why current resilience metrics fall short in the energy transition: A system-level review of gaps and needs

As electricity systems undergo rapid decentralization and decarbonization, ensuring resilience to increasingly complex and high-impact disruptions has become a strategic imperative. However, current approaches to resilience measurement remain fragmented, inconsistent, and poorly aligned with the evolving structure of power systems. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the main gaps in resilience metrics for decentralized and decarbonized electricity systems. We identify seven interrelated gaps: (1) conceptual overlap with reliability, (2) lack of standardization, (3) inadequate treatment of major events, (4) limited integration of supply chain risks, (5) context-specific and non-scalable indicators, (6) insufficient attention to societal and equity dimensions, and (7) poor adaptation to emerging threats such as cyberattacks and compound climate events. Drawing on academic literature and policy reports from the U.S. and Europe, the paper analyzes methodological challenges and offers pathways for improvement. These include multi-tiered and equity-weighted metrics, performance curves, real options-based valuation, and integration of supply chain indicators. By focusing on what is missing and why, it provides a structured agenda for developing next-generation resilience metrics that are better aligned with the needs of dynamic, decentralized, and low-carbon electricity systems. In doing so, the review moves beyond existing assessments by explicitly synthesizing conceptual, methodological, and equity-related gaps, offering a foundation for more context-sensitive and policy-relevant approaches to resilience measurement.