S&C Electric Company Report Reveals a Resilience Gap for North American Utilities

Survey conducted by Zpryme finds utility leaders balancing resilience goals against affordability pressures, rising operational risk, and increasing electricity demand

CHICAGO, Sept. 29, 2026 — Utilities face rising operational risk and growing electricity demand while affordability pressures constrain the pace of grid investment, according to the 2026 State of Grid Resilience, research conducted by Zpryme on behalf of S&C Electric Company.

The research finds a gap between the resilience outcomes utilities are working to achieve and the measurement, finance, and investment realities influencing how quickly they can act.

Among those surveyed, 75% of respondents report higher operational risk than five years ago, and nearly 80% expect resilience-related investment to increase over the next five years. At the same time, 61% identify affordability and customer rate pressure as the single greatest barrier to accelerating that investment.

The survey of utility and energy industry professionals across North America also found:

• A measurement gap between reliability and resilience could influence investment decisions. Respondents distinguish reliability, or grid performance under normal operating conditions, from resilience, or performance during disruptive events. Yet only 48% agree that current reliability metrics adequately capture performance during major events. Traditional reliability metrics often exclude “Major Event Days,” when outages have the greatest impact on customers. As a result, metrics used to guide investment decisions may not fully capture the value of investments designed to improve resilience during major disruptions.
• Distribution technologies lead to resilience returns but lag in deployment. Nearly 60% of respondents say most customer-impacting outages originate from the distribution grid. Respondents rank FLISR, protective devices, and distribution automation highest for resilience return. Yet only 12% have fully deployed self-healing distribution automation, and 52% cite capital cost as the biggest barrier to broader automation.
• Load growth is putting additional pressure on grid systems. 54% of respondents say projected load growth will be very or extremely significant for their systems over the next decade. 82% expect data centers and artificial intelligence to be a leading driver of load growth across the grid.

“The research shows that utilities are being asked to strengthen grid resilience in an increasingly challenging operating environment,” said Anders Sjoelin, president and CEO of S&C Electric Company. “Operational risk is rising, with electricity dependence and demand growing, and affordability remains a significant constraint. These findings reinforce the importance of prioritizing investments that deliver the greatest impact for customers and communities, particularly on the distribution grid.”

Alongside the report’s release, S&C is introducing its new brand positioning, Resilience, Engineered. The positioning builds on more than a century of engineering expertise. It reflects S&C’s focus on one of the energy industry’s defining challenges: strengthening the distribution grid for a future world with growing electricity demand, a more challenging operating environment, and greater dependence on resilient power.

Explore resilience solutions and the full 2026 State of Grid Resilience Report.