Smart Grid: 10 Trends to Watch in 2013 and Beyond

Well into its second decade of existence, the smart grid market remains an exciting yet risky place to do business.

This market strongly exhibits the correlation between high risk and high reward.

The enormous scale of the business attracts serious players of all sizes, some disruptive and others simply opportunistic.

Although several segments are well-established, little of this market could be characterized as mature. Navigant Research forecasts that smart grid technology revenue will reach a cumulative total of $494 billion during the period from 2012 to 2020, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10%.

Navigant Research has identified 10 key trends that will shape smart grid investment in 2013 and beyond. These topics are a starting point for smart grid stakeholders to understand how the market is likely to unfold throughout 2013 and the following years. The topics are a mixture of the expected and the unforeseen:

• Smart grid technology spending remains robust
• Smart meter shipments continue to decline
• Home energy management gains momentum
• Demand response shifts to a flexibility market
• Adoption of automated demand response accelerates
• Utilities rely more upon real-time grid analytics
• Disaster recovery and service restoration become more efficient
• Distributed energy generation poses more issues
• Meter data management struggles but survives
• Cyber security market offers limited promise

This Navigant Research white paper provides insights into key issues that will shape the smart grid market in the months and years ahead, with summary forecasts of smart grid, smart metering, and automated demand response markets. Each of the topics in this white paper is examined more deeply in Navigant Research market overview reports. The white paper also compares the development of these markets across different world regions.

Key Questions Addressed:

• Why will smart grid technology investment continue to grow and where are the opportunities?
• Where are smart meter revenues likely to increase and decrease?
• What is happening in the home energy management market?
• What are the latest trends in demand response?
• How are utilities going to use data analytics?
• How will distributed energy generation fit into the smart grid?
• Does meter data management have a future?
• Does anyone care about cyber security yet?

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