Global spending on smart grids will touch $200 Billion
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Bangalore: Governments and industry leaders are coming together with new found urgency to drive an overhaul of grid infrastructure, leading to an increase in spending. The global spending on smart grid technologies will touch $200 billion between 2008 and 2015, says Pike Research. Pike Research forecasts that these grid automation initiatives will capture 84 percent of global Smart Grid investment through 2015, compared to 14 percent for advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and two percent for electric vehicle management systems. The key market motivators driving the smart grid build out fall into four categories - improved reliability and security, improving operating efficiencies and costs, balancing power generation supply and demand, and reducing the overall electrical system's impact on climate change. However, barriers to this transformation go well beyond pure technical and economic issues, including a lack of common vision and standards, outdated and fragmented business and regulatory models, and lack of awareness (and often trust) of the consuming public. Ubiquitous electricity has served as the foundation for numerous technological innovations in the modern world. The electrical is a highly complex network with millions of miles of distribution lines. Yet, despite the critical role it plays, there is relatively little intelligence within this network. However, the electrical grid itself is typically based on decades-old technology and has suffered from low levels of investment for many years. "Smart meters are currently the highest-profile component of the smart grid, but they are really just the tip of the iceberg," said Managing Director at Pike Research, Clint Wheelock. "Our analysis shows that utilities will find the best return on investment, and therefore will devote the majority of their capital budgets, to grid infrastructure projects including transmission upgrades, substation automation, and distribution automation." Also, the cleantech market intelligence firm anticipates that smart grid revenues will peak in 2013 after several years of a strong push by key governments, and will thereafter be a smaller, albeit still very substantial, market.

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