This study develops a decentralized, bio-inspired self-healing framework to enhance the resilience and sustainability of electrical power systems under disruptive events. Qualitatively inspired by biological principles of environmental awareness, redundancy, and autonomous coordination, the proposed approach enables networked zones and microgrids to detect failures locally and initiate recovery without centralized control. Unlike conventional recovery-constrained dispatch and switch-placement strategies, the framework dynamically adapts restoration decisions while jointly optimizing operational performance and environmental objectives. The method is evaluated using a stochastic cost-minimization model applied to the IEEE 39-bus test system under multiple simultaneous failure scenarios. Quantitative results show that the bio-inspired approach reduces expected economic losses by 91% relative to the base case (compared to 78% for a switching strategy) and accelerates system recovery from 10 − 11 time steps to 6 time steps. Renewable energy utilization increases by 36% relative to the base case, indicating improved integration of clean generation during both normal operation and post-disruption recovery. Faster restoration and higher renewable utilization directly reduce reliance on carbon-intensive emergency generation, such as diesel backup units commonly deployed during prolonged outages. By shortening outage duration and displacing fossil-based generation during recovery, the proposed framework contributes to measurable CO 2 emission reductions and avoids energy losses associated with repeated shutdown–restart cycles. In addition, the number of unsatisfied buses is reduced by half, and expected financial losses decline by more than 70%, reflecting improved energy efficiency and reduced operational waste. Overall, the results demonstrate that decentralized, bio-inspired recovery can simultaneously strengthen power system resilience and advance cleaner, lower-carbon grid operation, offering a scalable pathway for sustainable infrastructure design under increasing disruption risk. • A decentralized bio-inspired framework improves power system resilience. • Self-healing coordination accelerates post-disruption recovery. • Expected losses are significantly reduced compared to baseline restoration. • Higher renewable utilization during recovery improves system performance. • The framework is scalable via zonal coordination and parallel recovery actions.
Wang et al. (2026) studied this question.