Critical electricity infrastructures: strengthening resilience is essential

Electricity infrastructures are central to Switzerland's supply. Its stable and secure operation is essential for Swiss society and the economy and, in particular, for the operation of other critical infrastructures such as hospitals and telecommunications. The national risk analysis "Disasters and emergencies in Switzerland", updated by the Federal Office for Civil Protection FOCP on 2 March 2026, ranks power shortages and blackouts among the most significant risks for Switzerland.

Current events are bringing the vulnerability and resilience (see box below) of critical infrastructure into focus: large-scale power outages caused by the war in Ukraine and most recently in Berlin, as well as increasing threats from vandalism, targeted cyber attacks and an intensified global security situation are forcing Switzerland to take action.

The state of play

Much has already been done to strengthen protection and resilience at all levels. The FOCP's national strategy for the protection of critical infrastructures (2023) provides an overview and defines overarching goals and principles for action. Building on this, regulatory requirements have been strengthened for energy infrastructures in particular and operators have been obliged to implement corresponding measures.

In addition, on 18 February 2026, the federal government decided to press ahead with work on draft legislation to improve the resilience and data security of critical infrastructures by implementing two motions that had been referred to it. The research consortium SWEET RECIPE (Swiss Energy Research for the Energy Transition: A sustainable and resilient energy future for Switzerland), which is supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy, is also looking into a sustainable and resilient energy future for Switzerland.

Nevertheless, there are weaknesses, challenges and areas for action that have been known for a long time and should be urgently addressed by decision-makers in politics and critical infrastructures. Far-reaching solutions have been proposed to mitigate them, but the broad implementation of such measures has often failed due to obstacles, i.e. a lack of awareness of the problem and, above all, a lack of willingness on the part of companies and the public to assume and pay for additional costs.

Six measures to strengthen electricity resilience

In order to strengthen the protection and resilience of the Swiss electricity supply as a precautionary measure and avoid potentially major damage in the event of an incident, I recommend that politicians, public administration and companies consider the following measures:

• Requirements and funding: politicians and the responsible authorities must endeavour to create regulatory requirements that are adapted to the current risks and secure funding for increased protection and resilience measures.
• Additions to the safety standard: The nationally and internationally required standard of (n-1) safety (see box below) is not sufficient. It must be supplemented by a concept that maps multiple failures and cascades with a common cause of damage. Such complex incidents have often led to major failures in the past and must be taken into account when planning countermeasures.
• Aiming for high resilience: Proving the functional reliability of power supply systems alone is not enough. Rather, a high level of resilience should be aimed for. However, this is not limited to the avoidance of disruptions - as is usually the case today - but also includes the efficient and rapid restoration or replacement of the function after failures.
• Precautionary planning and measures: High resilience requires precautionary planning and measures, including strengthened redundancies (see box below) and strategic (costly) stockpiling of parts that are difficult to procure - such as large transformers - as well as ensuring cooperation between authorities, operators and potentially affected parties in the context of new challenges.
• Predictive analyses such as simulations: to uncover weak points in the system using methods that take account of system complexity and interdependencies.
• Re-evaluation of sensitive information: Transparency and data protection obligations of system operators must be reassessed with regard to risks from vandalism and (cyber) attacks.

The rapid and consistent implementation of these measures appears to be urgently required in order to reduce the risk of serious outages and guarantee the high security of supply of the Swiss electricity supply under new circumstances.