$200bn Smart grid boom by 2015 says Pike research

and the U.S. government’s big grid giveaway this year — in the form of grants from the U.S. Department of Energy — came to only $3.4 billion. Even that sum is predicted to jumpstart utility grid initiatives in a big way. While the government is expected to invest more in the space, the $200 billion figure says a lot more about the private investment landscape. Basically, Pike is predicting that venture and private equity firms will catch onto a good thing and step up their involvement.

Khosla says don't find solid smart grid company yet

In particular, Smart Grid companies will be looking to the big cleantech investors, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Foundation Capital, and VantagePoint Venture Partners. Usually Khosla Ventures is included in this group, but founder Vinod Khosla has been vocal about being unable to find a solid enough Smart Grid company to back — at least for now.

The big winners Smart grid automation services infrastructure.

While the emphasis today is on smart meters and their makers, like Itron and Landis+Gyr, Pike predicts that most of the business — about 84 percent of it to be exact — will swing toward grid automation services, an umbrella encompassing companies like Silver Spring Networks and Trilliant, both based in Redwood City, Calif., as well as Siemens, General Electric and utilities themselves.

Electric cars make 2% impact

Without EVs on the road, electric car fueling companies like Coulomb Technologies and Better Place won’t be able to break out either

Smart meters peak 2013 at $35bn

Spending in the space should peak at $35 billion in 2013, Pike expects, arguing that once government backing for grid expansion shuts off

“Key Industry Players” in the Smart Grid industry,

Nine utilities, six infrastructure vendors, nine smart meter makers, 21 networking providers (including Silver Spring, Trilliant and eMeter), eight home energy monitoring companies, four semiconductor component makers and eight systems integration providers. Some of the more high-profile names that VentureBeat has examined this year include Tendril, Google, Grid Net, Duke Energy, SmartSynch, and IBM.

Outlook

Pacific Gas & Electric, Accenture, Itron, the Zigbee Alliance, Siemens and Oracle all agreed, Smart Grid space will see massive expansion

source: green.venturebeat.com [ based on Pike Research ]

Report Lux Research 2010 $5bn - 2015 16bn

projects that the smart grid market will grow from today's $4.5 billion to $15.8 billion by 2015. (different numbers than Pike research)

smart grid 3 segments

Measurement and communication, analysis and services, and local management.

Then, using the Lux Innovation Grid framework, it ranks 25 smart grid companies

Expected to top $5 billion by 2015, Smart meters

smart meters and supporting networking infrastructure technologies are seeing the earliest growth

- Corporations that mobilize quickly will dominate via economies of scale.

Few smart grid companies are differentiated by the technologies they're fielding. Thus, one of the few remaining competitive advantages open to market participants is how well their technology scales. Competitors unable

to establish early commercial relationships with utilities will likely get squeezed out of the market before long.

source: reuters.com [ based on Lux Research ]

The Pike research and the Lux research report come up with different numbers

or different views, quiet normal for the 3rd industrial revolution for DER de-central energy management.

Who would ever forecast the microelectronics revolution in 1985 ?

Some remember Regis MCKenna Silicon Valley, the man who got Intel and Apple running.

That's what we have to spot in the smart grid landscape, not mentioned by the reports