Electricity infrastructure resilience to bushfire and extreme weather: Impacts and stakeholder-driven recommendations

This paper examines the increasing risks that bushfires and extreme weather events pose to electricity infrastructure and related systems, including climate-induced threats such as storms, floods, and heatwaves. These events cause extensive damage to transmission and distribution networks, leading to widespread blackouts, asset deterioration, and economic losses. Additionally, disruptions to electricity networks have broader societal implications, such as public health risks, transport failures, and economic instability, necessitating urgent adaptation measures. This paper highlights that traditional electricity infrastructure was designed for historical weather patterns and lacks the resilience needed to cope with these emerging climate threats. As part of this research, targeted consultations with key stakeholders were carried out with a view to gaining a deeper insight into the challenges faced by utilities in tackling resilience-related problems. The outcome of the consultations was a set of key findings, which were analysed and synthesised to provide relevant policy and technical recommendations for enhancing electricity infrastructure resilience.