Smart Grids - Overview and Insights

Synopsis

Smart is now well and truly on the agenda of most electricity companies, and indeed on many of their governments’ political agendas. It has become increasingly clear that smart grids are able to transform the energy industry, and that a much broader group of industries are also affected by this. The other industries involved are IT, telecoms, white goods, renewables, management consultants, storage, transport, etc. The electricity grid is becoming the enabler in all these changes, and by making it an intelligent grid and adding telecoms to it, the power will shift away from the electricity companies to the customers – and the appliances that will be developed will assist this process; some of that on a M2M basis. On term being used for these developments is “the Inter Net of things’.

This industry transformation will lead to a regulated monopoly in relation to the infrastructure, while a range of new services and applications that are becoming available over the infrastructure will create increased competition, as, with many new companies entering this retail field, that market will become truly contestable. This will, of course, also lead to friction with the existing players. Disruptive energy developments from new energy service providers, who will build new business models around distributed (renewable) energy, will also add to the dynamics of the emerging market.

A significantly large part of the population is interested in reducing energy costs and lowering their CO2 footprint and there is evidence that savings of around 30% are possible. This could largely offset the increases in electricity prices. This report is designed to provide a current market overview as well as observations which may assist investors, analysts and industry participants in making investment and business decisions.

Latest developments:

China and the US have some of the largest smart grid markets in terms of value; these two countries are also large investors in the technology; in late 2011, ITU standards for smart grid achieved final approval.

Table of Contents

• 1. Synopsis
• 2. A concept, not a technology
  • 2.1 Electricity companies and the Internet of Things
• 3. Smart grid vision
  • 3.1 Smart grids in need of strategic plans
  • 3.2 Trans-sector policies needed
• 4. Smart grid market
  • 4.1 Overview
  • 4.2 Smart grid global investment
    • 4.2.1 Top 10 country smart grid spenders
  • 4.3 ITU approves smart grid standards
  • 4.4 Partnerships and consolidation
  • 4.5 General Electric propose smart grid as-a-service
• 5. Government policies and regulations
  • 5.1 Where are the leaders?
  • 5.2 No smart grids without government leadership
  • 5.3 Confusion regarding regulations
• 6. Smart energy
• 7. Smart grids, smart infrastructure, smart buildings and smart cities
• 8. Opportunities for the smart infrastructure
• 9. Related reports

• Table 1 – Value of the global smart grid market – 2012 - 2016

• Exhibit 1 – Smart Grid applications
• Exhibit 2 – Challenges Smart Grids can address
• Exhibit 3 - International Smart Grid Action Network
• Exhibit 4 – AT&T interested in Smart Grids