Smart grid revenue in Southeast Asia—generated by investments in transmission, substation, and distribution upgrades (as well as smart meters)—will grow from approximately $1.9 billion in 2011 to $4.5 billion in 2020, according to a report just released by Boulder, Colorado-based Pike Research (News - Alert).

The report notes that, in recent years, robust economic development and urbanization in Southeast Asia (SEA) has led to strong growth in electricity demand, in both sophisticated economies such as Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia, and less-developed nations such as Cambodia. But other nations in the region—Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam— still face crippling challenges, including low electrification, an underdeveloped power grid infrastructure, and a lack of capital and technologies to advance power grid services.

Indeed, electrification enhancement, especially in rural areas, is the top priority. Government policies are emphasizing electrification as a means of increasing food production, developing agro-industry and other types of industry, and providing lighting. 

The SEA nations also are seeking to add new generation sources and to reduce peak load demand, T&D losses, and network congestion. Along with T&D upgrades and automation, smart meters and AMI solutions are a part of the comprehensive commitment to constructing national-scale smart grid projects across SEA. The achievement of these goals will result in distribution/substation automation and modernization.

Pike Research forecasts that the greatest smart grid growth in SEA will occur in transmission upgrades. Most nations in the region are developing power plants – hydro, thermal, natural gas and even coal-based. Transmission upgrades will see strong growth throughout the forecast period (2011-2020) because they will be needed to link those power plants to power grids.

Nations with smart meter deployment projects in the early stage (2011-2015), including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, will lead growth for AMI. These nations also will lead in terms of revenue generation for AMI over the entire forecast period.

Overall, the penetration of smart meters is expected to grow at a steady pace across SEA. However, Singapore and Malaysia will lead in terms of penetration rates at 75 percent and 23 percent in 2020, respectively.

Pike Research forecasts that the SEA smart meter market will experience dramatic growth in unit shipments over the forecast period (2011-2020) — an overall compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 98.1 percent (with country CAGRs ranging from 60.1 percent to 129.3 percent).

Finally, Pike Research projects the market will surpass 1 million smart meter unit shipments in 2015 and reach more than 6.7 million units in 2020.

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