Cumulative global investment in smart grids, including smart meter implementations as well as upgrades to the transmission and distribution infrastructure, will approach $46 billion by 2015, according to the latest forecasts from ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com), Oyster Bay, N.Y.
The groundwork for smart grids has been laid in a number of countries over the past several years, but the pace of investment and implementation is increasing. Transmission and Distribution (T&D) investments will account for the lion’s share of smart grid investments through 2015, according to ABI. On a cumulative basis, a total of almost $41 billion will be invested globally in the electrical Transmission and Distribution infrastructure through 2015, compared to $4.8 billion for the purchase and installation of smart meters, the company says. This infrastructure spending will focus on grid automation and control, distribution automation, distributed generation and demand response programs.
The ABI study, titled “Smart Grid Applications: Smart Meters, Demand Response, and Distributed Generation,” forecasts the market for smart grid equipment and services for the 2010-2015 period, covering North America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and selected other countries. More on the study can be found on the ABI Web site
here.
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