BusinessWeek has a report on GE’s interest in the smart meter / smart grid market – GE to Tap Demand for Smart Meters in $200 Billion Global Market.
General Electric Co. is poised to tap the $200 billion smart-meter market as nations upgrade more power meters to improve electricity use and lower costs.
More than a billion electricity measuring units may be changed to “smart meters” in the next two decades, said Luke Clemente, general manager for GE Energy’s digital energy business. A smart meter system may cost $100 to $200 a unit, depending on the technology used, and the business may be worth as much as $200 billion excluding add-on systems and devices, based on calculations from GE data. …
The company is targeting U.K., Portugal, Spain, Germany and France as the European Union plans to replace 80 percent of their meters by 2020, the Atlanta-based GE official said. Smart grid installations may grow at “double digits” every year, he said, without giving details.
The U.S., which announced an $8 billion upgrade to the nation’s grid in October, plans to replace about 40 million of its 120 million meters with smart ones over three years. …
China, where GE built a smart grid demonstration center in Yangzhou, plans to replace 400 million meters in five years, Clemente said. South Korea, Asia’s fourth-largest energy user, said in January that it may spend about 27.5 trillion won ($24.5 billion) by 2030 building so-called smart power grids.
