With countries around the world rapidly adopting smart grid technology, investment is estimated to exceed US$100 billion by 2015.
The Smart Grid sector includes smart grid applications such as smart energy meters, SCADA systems, substation automation, IT, and other communication networks. Smart grids are not only beneficial for energy management, but also save electricity, which is generally lost in T&D networks.
This increased adoption of smart grid technologies is expected to propel the growth of the Global Smart Grid Networking Market at a CAGR of 11.1 percent from 2015-2019.
What is Smart Grid Networking?
Smart grid networking involves solutions for network automation and digital communication. Utility modernization involves the connectivity of many communication devices, which together constitute the core of the smart grid network. Efficiency, reliability, and speed of the data transferred across a network are significant features of a smart grid network.
Critical applications of a smart grid network such as smart metering, distribution automation, demand response management, and energy management systems help in improving the overall energy efficiency across the smart grid.
Market Driver: Enhanced Energy Management
Smart grid networking solutions enable utilities to track, predict, and manage data obtained from distribution substations and customers. They help utilities gather critical grid data and forecast future electricity demand from different end-users. Consumption data obtained from customers are collected through smart grid communication and networking technologies such as AMR, DSM, HAN, and load management devices. Data collected from distribution substations include voltage regulation, fault detection, voltage fluctuation, and transformer load balancing, and they improve overall energy management.
Smart grid communication technologies and networking solutions, such as HAN, facilitate data management and provide enhanced utilization of the existing power infrastructure through two-way communication. Smart grid data networking solutions help in managing the data collected from these sources, thereby allowing them to make better operational and business decisions based on the demand forecast.
Market Challenge: Fragmentation of Market
The Global Smart Grid Networking market is highly fragmented because of the presence of many small and medium-sized vendors, which provide grid communication systems to utilities along with data analytic solutions. These vendors also offer various technologies based on the smart grid network architecture.
However, choosing the right solution becomes difficult as many utility providers lack prior experience in dealing with the latest sensor technologies, data management techniques, and networking solutions.
Large corporations provide end-to-end solutions to utilities and support in building a robust network architecture whereas small entities provide innovative networking solutions at reasonable costs, which makes the decision making process difficult. This is one of the significant challenges faced by the Global Smart Grid Networking market.
