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By Jesse Berst

 

IDC Energy Insights is one of our sector's top research firms. Each year it issues its top 10 predictions for energy and utilities. I attended this year's webinar and came away with my own version, which I've shared with you below.

 

I want to emphasize that my version overlaps with IDC's but is not precisely the same. These are my interpretations and reactions to IDC's predictions. In many areas I agree with IDC. In a few others, I feel they may have over- or under-stated the issue. Case in point: I list only nine predictions and they are not all the same as the ones IDC chose to highlight.

 

To see the "official" top 10 list, go to the link below, scroll down until you see the list of web conferences, and click on Energy - Utilities. You can replay the webinar and/or download the slides.

 

       IDC Insights Predictions 2012

 

 

1. Utility mergers will accelerate.

 

2. Demand will flatten or even fall. After decades of sure, steady growth, consumption growth in North America has flattened and may begin to fall after 2012. This could force a difficult adjustment in an industry that has come to expect growth in consumption.

 

3. Municipals and co-ops will drive new AMI deployments. Their focus will be communications networks that can handle next territories (urban and rural). And that can handle multiple applications for multi-utilities (electric, gas, water).

 

4. Distribution automation spending will continue to accelerate thanks in part to short payback periods (18 to 36 months typically).

 

5. Utilities will invest heavily in analytics to manage Big Data. Utilities are getting large volumes of data from smart meters. Now they're trying to figure out how to get business value from that information. And how to use it for "real-time" trading and "real-time" operations.

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9 Forecasts

Thank you. A very good list. I think number 5 may be most important in the long run. Using realtime data to selectively reduce customers' usage for operations and trading is the biggest value of the SmartGrid. Number 6 appears somewhat high, given the number of building vacancies now and expected.

Jeff Williams - 12/27/2011 - 07:00

9 forcasts

Thank you for the list.But for number 5,I wonder to know is it right we consider a meter like a RTU?because meters generally provide measured values at least in one minute time intervals. Best regards Asadian

mohammad asadian - 12/27/2011 - 07:27

Top 9 List

I can't prove this theory, but I see links between #7, electric vehicles, and #9, PV installations that converge at the consumer level. I'd expect that there are a subset of environmentally-conscience consumers for whom the idea of driving EVs and installing solar panels outweigh the costs. Until the value proposition changes, either through regulation or some other form of incentive I'd expect that you'll see these two items trending together.

Paul Molitor - 12/27/2011 - 08:00

Smart Buildings $400 Billion?

I am quite surprised to see building energy analytics foreseen to grow to over $400 billion. That must be a misprint, as it is about the size of the entire electricity retail market. What is the size of this market?

Fredric Fletcher - 12/27/2011 - 10:04

PV-EV trends

Paul Item 7 in our area (AZ) shows a trend of about 50% for LEAF and PV owners so far. Both go together well and make the payoff even faster for both along with cleaner for all. In fact charging at night Off Peak and sending clean energy On Peak with PV helps the Utiltiy twice each day since they can't store the excess electric they generate or even ramp it down.

Jim stACk - 12/27/2011 - 18:01

Demand will not fall

It is a good list, but I have to strongly disagree with one item. Despite the best and very worthwhile efforts at energy efficiency, demand will not fall. Energy efficiency is a onetime belt tightening followed by shaving of future load increases by some relatively low percentage. Even ignoring PEV charging stations and other shifts to electricity as a preferred power source, there has been a significant "give back" on LED lighting efficiency improvements through this technology's increased use in applications where lighting was too expensive previously. The acceleration of communication and electronics load growth including "vampire" chargers and TV top devices that are 24 hour loads continues. It is important that we prepare for this continuing load growth and the increased transmission needs that the intermittency of renewables will further increase. We are currently struggling to emerge from an economic downturn. We only stay competitive with the rest of the world by virtue of our technology that is very electricity dependent. If we shift from an economic downturn to a recovery that gets stalled by insufficient electrical capacity, we may never recover.

Patrick M. Duggan - 12/28/2011 - 14:45

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