Smart grid market research exclusive: Smart grid winners and losers revealed

.

By Jesse Berst

I've just started perusing "The Worldwide Smart Grid Market in 2011: A Reality Check and Five Year Outlook Through 2015."  It's a three-volume compendium that pulls together results from numerous Newton-Evans surveys and studies. (I get to review the report because SGN is a marketing affiliate.)

Newton-Evans has been providing market research since 1978. Their methodology is old-school in the good sense of the phrase. They get their data from actual surveys of utility professionals and public utility commissioners, not through theoretical estimates or extrapolations. They call their approach "facts on the ground." I guess to distinguish themselves from the "facts made up in an MBA's head" approach I see far too often elsewhere.

Volume 1 summarizes their recent surveys of utilities, public utility commissioners and policy makers. It includes such things as:

·         Plans and preferences as reported by 41 of the 51 U.S. public utility commissioners

·         The go-forward plans of 112 utilities from 31 countries serving roughly 150 million customers

·         Growth prospects for India, Brazil, Mexico and China

Smart grid winners revealed

I have to admit I was surprised at some of the findings. For instance, here are four winners I might not have predicted:

·         SCADA and substation automation. When asked which smart grid initiatives provided the most bang for the buck, utilities ranked SCADA and substation automation at the top.

·         Remote fault location. When asked which smart grid initiatives they were likely to implement next, utilities put fault detection isolation and restoration (FDIR) on top, followed by conservation voltage reduction.

·         Growth of the smart grid market. Close to 2/3 of all utilities plan to increase their smart grid expenditures between 2012 and 2015. The number was lower in North America (54%) and higher internationally (85%).

·         Endesa and Enel. Did you realize that the European companies Endesa and Enel are leading the way on smart grid initiatives in Brazil? It's a market that is poised to explode, probably starting in 2013 and, so far at least, these two companies have an early mover advantage.

Smart grid losers

The study revealed some losers as well, these two in particular:

·         Smart metering. When asked which smart grid initiatives provided the most bang for the buck, utilities ranked smart metering dead last. They also said it was the slowest initiative to develop.

·         Home area networking.  Nearly 3/4 of all utilities either have no plans for home area networking, or have not yet made a decision. Only 2% have already committed to a business venture, with another 12% considering such a move.

If you want to know where other utilities plan to spend their money; which initiatives paid off for utilities and which did not; what PUCs intend to allow next; or what's next for things such as dynamic pricing and electric vehicles; then you'll want to study this report. Click to page two for a full description and pricing, or jump directly to the order page for The Worldwide Smart Grid Market in 2011.

Read Page Two >>