Technology Integration Will have Strategic Implications on Future Growth of Digital Grid Market: Report

Frost & Sullivan's recent analysis, Global Digital Grid (Sensors, Meters, and Communications) Growth Opportunities, finds that technological advancements and countries' emphasis on climate change policies are expediting market growth of the global digital grid.

Aging infrastructure, the need for higher reliability and resiliency, increased distributed resources, and the declining cost of digital solutions will also compel economies to adopt a digital grid.

As a result, the market is likely to garner $9.21 billion in revenue by 2030 from $8.15 billion in 2020, an uptick at a moderate compound annual growth rate of 1.2%. However, the COVID-19 pandemic slowed market expansion in the short and mid-terms.

Despite this, the industry will likely cross 2019 levels by 2026 as halted digital gird deployment projects gradually gather momentum and new projects begin.

China will remain the largest market in terms of revenue potential for digital grid solutions through 2030. The country's move to replace first-generation meters is one of the main reasons it will dominate the global digital grid market. 

North America will be the second-largest market due to its increase in second-generation metering deployments. Similarly, driven by the smart meters rollouts, Europe will occupy the third spot, followed by Asia-Pacific (excluding China), where electrification initiatives, growing renewables, and electric vehicles (EVs) prompt digital grid adoption.

"Integrating technologies such as digital grid equipment, virtual power plant (VPP), distributed energy resources management system (DERMS), demand response (DR), 5G, Big Data, and blockchain will have strategic implications on future growth in the grid space," said Rajalingam Arikaarampalayam Chinnasamy, Energy & Environment Industry Principal at Frost & Sullivan.