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Infrastructure 6 min read Published Updated Credibility 91/100

Infrastructure Resilience Briefing — February 10, 2022

Global infrastructure operators reviewing 2020–2022 resilience policy shifts must knit pandemic-era access controls, energy market reforms, supply-chain mandates, and U.S.-EU investment programs into a unified capital and operations plan for 2022.

Zeph Tech Research Lead

Research lead, Zeph Tech

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Executive briefing: Between early 2020 and February 2022, governments rewired infrastructure resilience policy at a pace that outstripped most capital planning cycles. Pandemic emergency powers, the U.S. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), and Asia–Pacific stimulus programs all injected public money alongside new reporting conditions. Simultaneously, OT ransomware incidents such as Colonial Pipeline, global supply-chain dislocations, and extreme-weather grid failures forced operators to prove business continuity plans instead of merely maintaining documentation. Executives entering 2022 must consolidate three years of fragmented directives into a single roadmap that balances near-term service continuity, medium-term modernization, and long-term climate adaptation financing.

Policy and market timeline: 2020–2022

In 2020, COVID-19 lockdowns triggered emergency exemptions and remote operations policies for utilities, ports, and transport authorities. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published iterative critical-infrastructure worker guidance, while the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) deferred certain compliance audits to keep crews focused on grid operations. European operators confronted similar allowances under the EU Green Lanes regime to keep cross-border freight moving. However, the same period exposed deferred maintenance and manual override gaps as staff shortages mounted.

By 2021, lawmakers shifted from temporary relief to structural investments. The IIJA earmarked more than $65 billion for grid modernization, $55 billion for water infrastructure, and $7.5 billion for electric-vehicle (EV) charging corridors, each with Buy America and cybersecurity guardrails. The EU’s RRF tied disbursements to digitalisation and sustainability milestones, forcing member states to submit detailed resilience plans. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s National Infrastructure Bank opened operations to co-finance regional resilience upgrades, and Japan’s Green Growth Strategy accelerated hydrogen and offshore wind buildouts. Critical infrastructure ransomware cases—including Colonial Pipeline, JBS, and Ireland’s HSE—prompted the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to issue pipeline security directives mandating incident reporting, contingency planning, and designated cybersecurity coordinators.

Entering 2022, regulatory momentum broadened. CISA’s “Shields Up” advisories raised baseline expectations for Russian invasion spillover, the Department of Energy (DOE) finalized supply-chain risk management plans under Executive Order 14017, and the EU started final negotiations on the revised Network and Information Security Directive (NIS2) that extends obligations to more operators of essential services. Energy market volatility driven by gas price spikes and interconnection constraints in Europe forced grid operators to revisit demand-response programs and capacity market rules. In Asia, Singapore’s Energy Market Authority published its Energy Transition plan, while Australia concluded the 2021 Critical Infrastructure Reform package, expanding the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act to additional sectors.

Operational priorities for 2022

Operations leaders should translate the dense regulatory landscape into measurable workstreams:

  • Continuity and surge staffing: Refresh pandemic-era alternate site plans with lessons from Delta and Omicron waves. Update cross-training rosters, reinforce minimum staffing analysis for control rooms, and confirm remote-access tool hardening against multi-factor authentication bypass attacks.
  • Asset condition monitoring: Prioritize sensors, digital twins, and analytics that allow deferred maintenance decisions to be data-driven. Tie reliability-centered maintenance schedules to hazard scenarios emphasized in the National Risk Register, FEMA’s National Response Framework, and equivalent EU national risk assessments.
  • Microgrid and distributed energy integration: Align capital budgets with IIJA and state-level funding windows. Document interoperability requirements for distributed energy resources (DER) to connect using IEEE 1547-2018, and ensure distribution management systems can ingest probabilistic forecasts that grid regulators now expect in rate cases.
  • Incident response exercises: Combine cyber-physical tabletop drills that simulate ransomware on OT controllers, long-duration outages, and climate-driven asset loss. Capture metrics suitable for CISA cross-sector performance goals and EU NIS2 supervisory expectations.
  • Supply-chain resilience: Map tier-two suppliers for transformers, switchgear, and industrial control systems, noting lead times exceeding 52 weeks. Establish alternate suppliers that satisfy domestic-content requirements, and capture risk data aligned to DOE’s Energy Sector Supply Chain Risk Management Plan and the European Commission’s Guidance on Foreign Direct Investment Screening.

Governance and oversight moves

Boards and public-sector oversight bodies are tightening accountability for resilience delivery:

  • Integrated resilience dashboards: Audit committees expect consolidated reporting that merges financial exposures, operational risk indicators, and regulatory commitments. Build dashboards that map IIJA grant milestones, NERC reliability standards, TSA security directives, and climate disclosure commitments under the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).
  • Capital allocation governance: Establish joint finance–operations committees that review resilience investments quarterly. Document decision criteria that weigh net present value against avoided outage costs and compliance penalties, especially for EU taxonomy-aligned projects requiring 100% renewable energy sourcing or lifecycle emissions assessments.
  • Stakeholder engagement: Strengthen communications with municipal authorities, tribal governments, and community choice aggregators who co-manage resilience funds. Record memoranda of understanding and mutual-aid agreements, including compensation models when private utilities support public agencies.
  • Policy tracking: Assign responsibility to compliance or public affairs leads to monitor implementation rules for the IIJA, U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grants, EU NIS2 trilogue outcomes, and Australia’s Security of Critical Infrastructure Act rules. Provide quarterly briefings that translate legislative developments into investment implications.

Technology, data, and security enablers

Infrastructure modernisation hinges on targeted digital capabilities:

  • Operational technology (OT) visibility: Deploy passive asset-discovery and network-segmentation platforms that satisfy TSA pipeline directives and forthcoming EU NIS2 audit requirements. Integrate OT telemetry with security information and event management (SIEM) systems to support 72-hour incident reporting obligations.
  • Climate and hazard modelling: Adopt probabilistic risk models that incorporate updated NOAA climate normals, EU Copernicus data, and national geological surveys. Link these models to capital planning tools so that board packs demonstrate how asset hardening or relocation reduces exposure.
  • Data governance for funding claims: Ensure grant reimbursement packages reference authoritative systems of record, with immutable logs for cost allocation, disadvantaged community impact metrics, and Davis–Bacon prevailing wage compliance.
  • Zero-trust network design: Continue implementing CISA’s cross-sector performance goals—multi-factor authentication, segmentation, continuous monitoring—to minimize dwell time. Align with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum M-22-09 requirements where federal partnerships share infrastructure.

Sourcing and partnership strategy

Supply dynamics remain constrained, demanding proactive sourcing:

  • Vendor vetting: Reassess integrators and OEMs against U.S. Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) supply-chain rules, EU Cybersecurity Act certification schemes, and Australia’s Trusted Information Sharing Network guidance. Document cybersecurity posture, component provenance, and resilience KPIs in master service agreements.
  • Consortia participation: Join regional resilience collaboratives such as the U.S. GridWise Alliance, EU’s Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking, or Singapore’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Group to pool threat intelligence and co-fund pilots.
  • Long-lead procurement: Lock in transformer cores, high-voltage cables, semiconductor components, and backup generation contracts with multi-year framework agreements. Include clauses for inflation indexing and foreign exchange risks tied to commodity price swings.
  • Public-private alignment: Coordinate with government program offices administering IIJA, RRF, or national recovery funds to stage matching investments. Capture documentation to pass Single Audit requirements or EU state-aid reviews.

Near-term actions

Leadership teams should deliver an integrated resilience portfolio within 60 days:

  1. Consolidate a single inventory of capital, maintenance, and technology projects launched since 2020, tagging each with regulatory drivers, funding sources, and expected in-service dates.
  2. Update enterprise risk registers to reflect cross-sector threat bulletins (CISA Shields Up, EU CSIRTs network alerts) and assign accountable executives for each hazard scenario.
  3. Publish a refreshed resilience scorecard to boards and regulators covering mean time to recovery, incident drill frequency, and supplier redundancy metrics.
  4. Launch stakeholder listening sessions with unions, local governments, and customer advocates to validate planned service changes before filing tariff or license updates.

Forward look through 2023

Expect regulatory scrutiny to intensify. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is finalizing resiliency reporting for communications providers, the DOE’s Grid Deployment Office is awarding long-duration energy storage and transmission facilitation funds, and EU member states must transpose NIS2 by 2024. Climate disclosure regimes (SEC climate proposal, UK Transition Plan Taskforce, International Sustainability Standards Board) will embed resilience metrics into financial filings. Infrastructure operators who centralize compliance intelligence, invest in OT security, and formalize supplier diversification through 2022 will be best positioned to compete for limited public funds and defend rate cases amid inflation and geopolitical instability.

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