Bridging Policy, Governance and Technical Barriers to Energy Resilience in China

ABSTRACT This study addresses the multifaceted barriers impeding energy resilience and proposes prioritised strategies to overcome them within sustainable energy transitions. Using an integrated multi‐criteria decision‐making (MCDM) framework combining the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (fuzzy TOPSIS), the research identifies, evaluates and ranks sub‐barriers across six critical domains: policy and economic constraints, technical and infrastructure limitations, corporate governance and stakeholder alignment, data integration and modelling complexity, environmental and social impacts and geohazard and climate stressors. Results indicate that subsidy and incentive volatility, grid interoperability challenges and investment risk perceptions emerge as dominant barriers, underscoring institutional and financial uncertainties in energy systems. Ten resilience strategies are proposed and prioritised to address these challenges, including integrated geo‐data management, public–private partnership governance models and green bond financing. Sensitivity analysis confirms the robustness of the ranking outcomes. The findings contribute actionable insights for policymakers, investors and stakeholders to strengthen adaptive energy systems and advance low‐carbon, climate‐resilient development pathways.