Towards a socio-technical perspective on resilient power systems: challenging techno-centrism in the Swedish electricity sector

Electric power systems face a multitude of threats and changes, including climate change impacts, energy transitions, security threats, and rapid technology diffusion at the household level. Resilience has emerged as a relevant concept to describe the power system's ability to adapt and transform to manage all these changes. Yet resilience does not have a fixed definition, and little is known about how it is being operationalized in the energy sector. This paper examines how Swedish electric utilities interpret what resilience means in their power system context, and how they envision households' roles within it. The study draws on seven focus groups with 26 professionals from seven electric utilities from different parts of Sweden. The results demonstrate how techno-centric perspectives largely dominate utilities' interpretation of the resilient power system, and how households are given somewhat contradictory roles within it. However, discussions around households' potential roles also contest the view of resilience as merely a technical issue. Thus, the analysis identifies tensions that emerge when more social aspects of resilience are made visible, including what actors are recognized as important co-producers of resilience. The paper advocates for a more socio-technical interpretation of energy resilience, which can offer a broader set of strategies for managing changes in the power system, that are better aligned with a sustainable energy transition. A key contribution of the paper is thus that it demonstrates how socio-technical resilience can serve as a conceptual tool to challenge expectations and norms associated with electricity infrastructure in affluent contexts.