Electricity Delivery and Management:

Distribution

Global 2011 revenues for automation vendors totaled nearly $6.0 billion, with 2012 estimates up to $7.4 billion, for 23% year-over-year growth.

Smart grid evolution is most evident in the electrical distribution system, the medium-voltage network that delivers electricity from the transmission system to customers. The distribution system must increasingly support dynamic loads, distributed generation resources, and more interactive consumers. New substation and distribution automation technologies enabling adaptive, self-healing power networks are core to meeting these demands.

Global 2011 revenues for automation vendors totaled nearly $6.0 billion, with 2012 estimates up to $7.4 billion, for 23% year-over-year growth. The specific technologies vary regionally due to infrastructure design differences around the world, but the general goal is to increase power network intelligence, whether applied in new build-outs supporting China’s growth or in upgrading existing substations in Europe and North America.

In the United States, the primary focus has been improving grid reliability by automating distribution substations and associated feeder circuits. Vendor revenues reached nearly $1.8 billion in 2011, and are estimated at $2.2 billion for 2012, a 26% increase. Although these figures reflect projects accelerated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 funding, many of these reliability and efficiency improvements (such as dynamic voltage control) have strong business cases without government funding.

Economic Impact

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