The smart grid predictions for 2012

Every year IDC Energy Insights predicts the trend for the upcoming year. IDC Energy Insights is one of the top global research firm providing predictive analytical information to the energy industry. At this year webinar the focus was on North American utility and energy industry, where, according to HorizonWatching, the  following top 10 trends were identified. "The industry is entering in post stimulus period. While funding has dried up, there are areas where investment spending is growing, such as solar PV installation, smart grid, smart buildings, electric vehicles, and energy storage", says IDC Energy Insights. 

The Top 10 List

1) Smart Meter: The growth will peak in 2012, which will usher demand response growth

2) Distribution Automation: It will grow at 13% CAGR in 2012

3) Smart Buildings: The investment in this area will gain more traction

4) Electric Vehicles: Around 120,000 EVs will be sold in North America in 2012

5) Lithium Batteries: The  Li-ion batteries price will drop to $600 per KWH by the end of 2012

6) Solar PV Installations: It will grow more than 25% despite the expiring of 1063 treasury grant

7) Commercial PV: Micro-inverters or DC optimizers will be incorporated in > 60 MW plants

8) Security & Risk: It will be the key concern for decision makers,prompting them to invest more

9) Big Data Analytics: Utilities will increase their investment to derive business value out of this

10) IT Spending: The IT spending bu utilities will grow by 4.5% over the next four years

Jesse Burst, the founder of SmartGridNews and one of the foremost expert in Smart Grid, identified 9 trends out of the same IDC Energy Insights webinar. Except following few most of them are similar to the top 10 official prediction listed above.

1) Utilities mergers and acquisition will accelerate

2) Demand will flatten or even fall

3) Municipal and Co-ops will drive new AMI deployments 

4) 2012 will be make or break for Electric Vehicle

Smart Grid in Asia Pacific: Potential,Opportunities, and Growth

Asia-Pacific is consider one of the most dynamic and the fastest growing region in the world. With over quarter of the world population located in this part, and most of the countries still in development stages, there is huge growth potential in almost all segments. The hyper- growth is fueling the demand for more energy, which in turn is creating significant market opportunities for clean-tech market. According recent report, published by the leading clean tech market intelligence firm PikeResearch, Smart Grid investment in Asia Pacific is set to reach $171.3 billion by 2017. The report notes that for every country the drivers for Smart Grid implementation are significantly different.

According to senior analyst, Andy Bai, "Chinese market players believe that the construction of a smart grid is a key part of economic growth and enhancing the ability to optimize energy allocation, including the integration of new generation capacity from both renewable and fossil fuel sources.  Japan’s electric utilities have been investing huge amounts of capital in power infrastructure, resulting in advanced capabilities in transmission infrastructure and power delivery services; however, the tragic March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and resulting Fukushima nuclear accident are likely to redefine not only Japan’s smart grid planning, but perhaps the direction of the nation’s utility industry.  Korea seeks to leverage its technology leadership in the IT and communications space to form an advanced smart grid infrastructure within the country, as well as an opportunity to export smart grid technologies around the world.  Significant and influential smart grid projects are also underway in Australia, India, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region.” The analyst further adds, the transmission upgrades, Distribution Automation, and Advanced Metering Infrastructure will capture majority of the market with each segment having share of 54%, 18%, and 15% respectively". 

The report provides in-depth analysis for market drivers, business models and applications, technology issues,  and government policy within Asia-Pacific Region. The study covers detailed forecast by application for China, India, Korea, Australia, Japan, and the ASEAN region. Overall, the study addresses following key questions. 

Key Questions Addressed

• What are the key market drivers for smart grid development in each Asia Pacific market?
• Which business models are being employed for APAC smart grid deployments? How are these similar to other models found around the world, and how do they differ?
• Who are the key industry players influencing the development of APAC smart grid initiatives? Are there opportunities for additional participants to enter the market?
• For each country, what is the size of the market opportunity within each smart grid application segment?
• What are the key technology issues facing smart grid industry players in each market?

Top five Smart Grid Trends and other stories

1) Research says SmartMeters safe, but many see need for more study 

Smart Meters, which like other wireless devices uses low radio frequency to transfer information, has made skeptics question how safe it is to human health, though, studies have found no evidence of its adverse impact on human health, more studies are needed to give green signal to Smart Meters.

2) Echelon based Smart Street Lighting Systems Find Success in France

Echelon's Intelligent distributed control solution that is based on Power Line Communication (PLC) technology is helping French Cities save 45% in energy consumption, a similar technology installation that is successful in china as well.


3) Electricity use due to EVs could soar by 1,700 percent by 2020

A report indicates energy usage could rise to 1700 % by 2020  from its present 146 000 MWh to 2.6 million MWh due to Electric Vehicles.


4) Top Five Smart Grid Trends

The article discusses top 5 trends in Smart Grid and what Distribution Automation, which represents $10 billion by 2015, really means


5) LEED to embrace Demand Response

 The US Green Building Council, which created the rating system LEED for Green building, is considering ways to incorporated Demand Response in LEED rating system

These 10 Smart Grid trends will have louder buzz in 2011 and beyond

The prominent clean-tech research organization Pike Research has identified top Smart Grid trends that will have higher decibels just not in words but also in action in Smart Grid community in the coming years.With Smart Grid projects being implemented across the world, the Smart Grid community is learning the potential challenges, issues, and opportunities the transformation of the energy infrastructure presents.

1) Smart Grid Security to become top concern

As the Smart Grid implementation gathers pace, security is set to become the one of the top concern in Smart Grid domain. With no standards and protocols defined and with the complexity it possesses, security is going to be the major nightmare for the Smart Grid, which was well analyzed by the experts when the recent  Stuxnet virus breakout occurred. And, hence NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) has given due weightage by publishing  three volumes of  "Guidelines for Smart Grid Cyber Security".

2) Distribution Automation will become the Smart Grid Application

The AMI(Automated Metering Infrastructure) or in general sense Smart Meter that has got more publicity so far, it seems that is set to change in the coming years, according to Pike Research. Distribution automation, which includes Demand Response, Electric Cars, and distribution generation is set to take center stage.

3) "Bakersfield Effect" or the loud consumer push back of Smart Grid will continue

Consumer experienced higher electricity bills in California and Texas after implementation of Smart Meters by PG&E and Oncor respectively. Many consumers showed loud opposition to Smart Meter, In addition to this, some Counties in US passed resolution against Smart Meters and Maryland rejected Baltimore Gas and Utilities (BGE's) Smart Meter plan (which they accepted later on with some changes). As the Smart Meter and Smart Grid implantation gathers pace, such events will increase. Industry as whole needs to educate consumers and be ready to address the concern of the consumers, which it seems it wasn't ready in 2010.

4) The Smart Meter and AMI focus will move to China and Europe

With North America leading the Smart Grid implementation in 2010, all the Smart Meters and AMI buzz was in US and Canada. It seems to change from 2011, as Europe, which spearheaded the Smart Meters implementation, and China are set to have largest numbers of Smart Meters implementations in coming years. Europe is planning implement 100 million Smart Meters, notable among them is Spain, UK, France, and Germany. China, which is leading the Smart grid investment pack in 2010 is set to rollout 750 million Smart Meters by 2020, according to Pike Research.

5) HAN will be in waiting ..

HAN (not the Chinese name) the Home Area Network,with agreed basic Zigbee standards and available critical mass of Smart Meters in 2010, was supposed to gain momentum. However, with changes in standards, integration of IP in the standards, and due to "Bakersfield Effect", It will have its first implementation in sometime middle of 2011 and the real growth may happen in 2012. 

6) Demand Response will accelerate

The companies like EnerNOC, which are into business of offering benefits to customers who reduce the energy usage during certain time period, which is also know as curtailment services, will gather momentum in coming years. Also, companies like Honeywell, Siemens, and Johnson controls, which provide services and products for Energy Management Services (EMS) will enter in this domain. IT companies like Cisco and IBM are also investigating EMS space with their new products and may disrupt the DR domain with advance offering of EMS and DR.

7) Smart Grid stimulus will start showing its impact

The US government's $3.4 billion stimulus package announced in 2009 and allocated in 2010 will show its impact from 2011 onwards. The funds have accelerated the process of standards, educational and training program are being prepared that will provide skilled workforce, and pilots will provide the much needed experiment for the full roll out. 

8) Standards will catch up with the deployment efforts

Without standards no big complex system can function effectively, having known this, Smart Grid community is working on setting up common standards for its ecosystem. Nonetheless, the effort so far have lagged behind the actual implementation, which is more so accurate in the case of AMI. Worldwide, there are various standards and protocols that are being adopted, Within US itself IP, Zigbee, propriety mesh, Wi-Fi, and others are being adopted by utilities and their vendors.The interaction between this standards, and what standards to be adopted still being discussed, however, US and Europe seems to finally coming up with the Standards that will catch with the deployment.

9) Data management will be the next major challenge for Smart Grid

With the implementation of Smart Meters or AMI and other Smart Grid technologies, utilities will start gathering data at every 15 minutes or in some cases less than that, which is set to create an ocean of data that needs to manage, maintain, and analyze. Essentially, it will require new, advanced, and better IT technology, skills, and expertise. According to Pike Research "The smart grid is driving utility back-end IT systems and applications toward an even more radical transformation than the communications infrastructure".  Collecting the data, integrating in the system, transforming into useful information, and transmitting to its users in timely manner is going to be the daunting task for the industry.

10) Data and Telecom vendors will become serious about Smart Grid

Top telecom companies Vodafone, AT&T, Verizon, and others are emerging as serious players in the Smart Grid industry by offering their communication infrastructure to utilities.  More Partnership like Cicso and Itron  will emerge in the coming years and 2011 may be the transformative year  for the Telecom companies.