Smart Grid Spending Expected To Total Nearly $600 Billion By 2023

Following on from news earlier this week, which saw Navigant Research predict investment in microgrids to reach $31 billion in the Asia Pacific region by 2023, the same company has released another report investigating smart grid technologies, and predict that market spending will total $600 billion from 2014 through 2023.

The report, Smart Grid Technologies, believes that “the market for smart grid technologies is evolving rapidly as the need for a more responsive, automated, and efficient power grid rises worldwide.” As a result, cumulative spending is expected to total $594 billion from 2014 through 2023.

“The benefits of smart grid technology are becoming increasingly measurable, in terms of both economic benefits and improved grid reliability,” says Richelle Elberg, senior research analyst with Navigant Research.

“Government mandates and growing challenges to grid stability, such as aging infrastructure, electric vehicle charging, and distributed generation, are contributing to increased spending on everything from smart metering systems in the field to new IT systems in the operations center.”

One of the major developments over the past year, according to the report, is the trend of the “smart” moving away from the control centers and out to the edges of the grid. The authors report that “intelligence is increasingly put into grid devices rather than in the operations center, and analytics are moving closer to the data.”

Distributed intelligence offers two major benefits to utilities.  First, it alleviates the data flow to central control, placing less stress on communications networks.  Second, distributed intelligence allows for faster – virtually instantaneous in some cases – response, which may help reduce outage times.

The report predicts that the falling costs for devices and communications networks, combined with the increasing desire for more efficient and reliable technologies will lead to growth in the smart grid market. Furthermore, Navigant believe that government mandates, especially throughout Europe, will help push market penetration over the coming decade.