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According to the cleantech market research firm, the global remote microgrid market will jump from 349 megawatts in 2011 to 1.1 gigabytes by 2017, representing a total project revenue of over $10.2 billion by that time.

Why? As Peter Asmus, Pike senior analyst put it: "A widening recognition of the contribution renewable energy makes to rural development, lower health costs (linked to air pollution), energy independence and climate change mitigation is shifting renewable energy from the fringe to the mainstream of sustainable economics. Remote microgrids can serve as the anchors of new, appropriate scale infrastructure, a shift to smarter ways to deliver humanitarian services to the poor."

Pike's report, Remote Microgrids, says that while remote microgrids are the most commercially advanced of the microgrid sectors, many investors and vendors haven't caught on yet. But that is changing as big companies like GE and ABB are beginning to understand the enormous potential of this "sleeping giant of a microgrid market."

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