Smart grid: A $45 billion opportunity?
Remember our rants about the need for a so-called Intelligrid, and about how local investors were starting to talk about this too, i.e., a more efficient way to distribute power, which would also help the environment? Well, the Global Environment Fund has just released a report, saying this is a $45 billion opportunity. Via Rob Day:
Now the Global Environment Fund, a cleantech venture investment firm, has released a very useful study which specifically addresses the subject. Out of the global $81B spend on power grid infrastructure in 2005, they argue….
…, $25B could be addressed by “smart” products. As they point out, transmission spending is already forecast to be greatly increasing in the U.S., since 70% of transmission lines are 25 years old or older, 70% of transformers are 25 years old or older, and 60% of circuit breakers are 30 years old or older — and we’re running out of capacity to begin with. A large bill is becoming due, and smart grid technologies can help mitigate the costs and build a more reliable system in the doing.
Page 6 of the report has the $45 billion reference.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
