Since its origins at the beginning of the last century, the electricity system has been a critical driver of US economic growth. Reliable and resilient delivery of electricity to homes and businesses is a foundation of national prosperity, and grid outages have grave consequences.

The current grid is characterized by a one-way flow of services and value that convert primary energy to value-added services. This system, with its linear dependencies and easily disrupted individual components, is inherently fragile. Disruptions within any component of the grid can cause outages for customers.

Utilities have long recognized this inherent vulnerability and managed it through redundancy and hardening of critical equipment. But most present-day approaches to grid resilience were first designed for a previous era, where large-scale, fuel-reliant generators were the most economical method for providing electricity. But that is changing rapidly, as newer technologies including solar, wind, and energy storage continue to fall in price and rapidly gain market share across the United States. Common approaches to resilience fail to take advantage of these market-driven technology trends.