Smart Grid Will Generate $200B of Global Investment  

Earth2tech has a post on forecasts for the smart grid market - Smart Grid Will Generate $200B of Global Investment.

As we pointed out in October, Pike Research says that smart meters will play a pretty small percentage of that total investment while smarter grid infrastructure — including transmission upgrades, substation automation, and distribution automation — will generate the majority of those funds. Grid automation will generate 84 percent of the global investment, smart meters 14 percent, and electric vehicle management systems only 2 percent. In other words, despite the focus on smart meters by many governments, deeper in the grid (away from consumers) is where the real investment will happen.

Another thing interesting to remember about these figures is that total smart grid funding will actually peak in 2013, largely because these are infrastructure investments. Utilities only need to make these once every several decades. For entrepreneurs and investors, that means another thing entirely: There’s a very specific window opening up through which companies need to act fast to capitalize on.