Between the Poles: North American smart grid market forecasted to shift from hardware to software

Geoff Zeiss

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February 25, 2014

North American smart grid market forecasted to shift from hardware to software

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance global smart grid investment was up by about 5% in 2013 compared to 2012.

2013 $14.9 billion
2012 $14.2 billion

In 2013 for the first time China was the leader in smart grid investment ahead of the U.S.

China $4.3 billion
U.S. $3.6 billion

Investment in smart grid is forecasted to remain strong. Asian and European markets are expected to drive growth through 2020, while in North America spending will shift from hardware to software as utilities look to big data management and analytics to convert increasing volumes of data to actionable information.

Smart meter deployment

Smart metering accounted for just under half of the total smart grid spending worldwide in 2013. China led in the number of smart meters installed in 2013. China installed 62 million smart meters in 2013 for a total of 250 million. Europe has only installed 55 million smart meters but this is expected to increase rapidly over the next few years to reach 180 million by 2020. Spain has a large scale delopyment underway. The UK, France and Germany are planning large scale smart meter deployments starting in 2015. Brazil's smart meter deployment is being delayed. Japan is on the verge of a large scale deployment. In the U.S. smart meter deployment is slowing down as ARRA funding runs out.

Distribution automation

Global spending on distribution automation which includes self-healing networks and conservation voltage regulation (CVR) or Volt/VAR increased by 23% over 2012.

2013 $5.4 billion
2012 $4.4 billion

Future smart grid investment

Bloomberg New Energy Finance sees the following developments in 2014 and beyond:

Smart meter deployment in China will slow down, but investment in distribution automation will increase.
Smart grid activity in Japan, Korea, India and South East Asia will ramp up.
The US is entering a second major smart grid phase of information integration. This involves applying "big data" management and analytics to leverage the increasing volumes of data coming from smart meters and other smart devices to reduce non-technical losses and improve outage management.

Posted at 09:30 AM in Analytics, Big data, Electric Power, Grid reliability, Grid resilience, Smart-grid | Permalink

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Between the Poles

Geoff Zeiss

October 2024

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February 25, 2014

North American smart grid market forecasted to shift from hardware to software

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