Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Maintaining the operational continuity of critical infrastructures during natural hazards is essential for supporting societal well-being and economic development. This paper introduces the RECINAT framework, as a proactive approach for assessing and enhancing the technical and economic infrastructure resilience against natural hazard-triggered technological events. The study specifically focuses on distribution power systems in the Nordic region, which face significant vulnerabilities from rainfall-induced landslides. This study utilizes an indicator-based methodology to quantify resilience through a hazard-preventive pathway with metrics such as normalized electrical energy not supplied (NEENS), interruption of nodes (ION), and the cost of energy not supplied (CENS). Integration of distributed energy resources configured as virtual power plants (VPPs) is proposed for system resilience enhancement. An enhanced IEEE 33-bus distribution test system is adapted to represent a regional grid in Southwest Norway as the case study. The strategic deployment of these VPPs is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem and solved using the nondominated sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) as the targets of simultaneous minimization of NEENS, CENS, total VPP capacity, and active power losses. Numerical results demonstrate that optimized VPP deployment reduces economic losses from service interruptions and improves the overall redundancy resilience index. The proposed framework can support resilience-oriented operational planning and long-term investment decision-making for distribution networks exposed to increasing climate-related hazards.</p>