Smart Grid Investment to Quintuple in Next Two Decades

Summary: The amount of money invested in the Smart Grid is expected to grow fivefold over the next 20 years.  That’s according to Rob Wilhite, senior vice president of global energy and utility consulting firm KEMA, Inc. Wilhite’s comments about Smart Grid investment were based on KEMA research and came in a keynote address at the 16th annual Innovations conference hosted by Apogee International.
 
In a second keynote, Jeff Conklin, of J.D. Power and Associates, reported that customer satisfaction for utilities jumped in the past year, according to his company’s 2009 survey. Conklin discussed reasons for the improvement, chief among which were utilities providing energy conservation and online bill payment to customers.
 
The conference also included remarks by Paul Nagel, vice president of strategic development at Control4, an Apogee technology partner.  Nagel discussed home area networks as a tool for giving customers information and encouraging energy savings.
 
Apogee’s cofounder and chief software architected gave a demonstration of Apogee’s AuditMation Energy Analysis System (version 5) and online HomeEnergyCalculator. Like Control4’s products, the Apogee software is designed to give energy consumption to consumers.

Quick Take: There are many trend nuggets buried in this item. First, the projected growth rate explains why Cisco, Lockheed and other "outsiders" are suddenly so focused on joining the Smart Grid parade. Second, the J.D. Power findings are good news to utilities looking for ways to justify Smart Grid upgrades to regulators. Third, the in-home display space is already starting to bunch up into teams. In this case, it is Control4 and Apogee who are teaming up to provide a more complete solution. But similar front-end/back-end partnerships have been showing up everywhere.

More information: Other speakers at the conference include William Rodgers, CEO of GoodCents Holdings, discussing a customer-centric philosophy of presenting portfolios of energy efficiency programs, Penni-McLean Conner, VP of customer care and energy efficiency for NSTAR, Massachusetts’ largest IOU, addressing the value proposition of energy efficiency for utilities and their customers, and Chandler von Schrader of the EPA, who summarized the components of the Home Performance with Energy Star program for home energy auditing and retrofit installations.

   Press release