Smart Metering in North America and Asia-Pacific – 4th Edition

Smart Metering in North America and Asia-Pacific is thefourth consecutive market report from Berg Insight analysing thelatest smart metering developments in two dynamic regions.This strategic research report from Berg Insight provides youwith over 225 pages of unique business intelligence, including5-year industry forecasts, expert commentary and real-life casestudies on which to base your business decisions.

Highlights from the report:

In-depth market profiles of the US, Canada, China, India, Japan,South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
360-degree overview of next-generation PLC, RF and cellularstandards for smart grid communications.
Profiles of the key players in the smart metering industry in NorthAmerica and Asia-Pacific.
New detailed forecasts for smart electricity meters until 2025.
Analysis of the latest market and industry developments in each ofthe countries.
Case studies of smart metering projects by the leading energygroups in the two regions.

This report answers the following questions:

How are national energy policies driving the adoption of smartmetering?
What is the current deployment status of major utilities in NorthAmerica and Asia-Pacific?
How are market-liberalising reforms changing the energy utilitysector in Asia?
How is the smart metering market in India developing?
What is the current state of smart metering in Japan and SouthKorea?
How will the Chinese market evolve after completing its firstwave of deployments?
How has the industry in Australia been affected by the transitionto market-driven rollouts?
Which communications technologies are being used for smartmetering in Asia-Pacific and North America?
Which are the leading smart metering solution providers in NorthAmerica and Asia-Pacific?
What is the outlook for second-wave rollouts in North Americaand Asia-Pacific?

Executive summary

Smart metering is widely regarded as the cornerstone for future smart grids and is currentlybeing deployed all over the developed world, with a growing number of large-scale initiativesnow also being launched in developing countries. Asia-Pacific constitutes the largest marketby far while North America ranks as the third largest market after Europe. The two highlydynamic market regions saw a wave of massive smart metering projects being launched orcompleted during the first half of the past decade. Several major utilities in these regions arethus now preparing for a second wave of deployments to take off, driven by new smart meterfunctionalities and smart energy use cases. Other markets in South and Southeast Asia areon the other hand just beginning their smart metering journeys, following in the footsteps ofthe leading markets in East Asia.

Berg Insight forecasts that the installed base of smart electricity meters in North America willgrow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.7 percent throughout the forecast period, from110.4 million in 2019 to a total of 153.8 million in 2025. Asia-Pacific – defined as China, Japan,South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand – is projected to see the installed base ofsmart electricity meters grow from 659.3 million units in 2019 to 886.1 million units in 2025.

North America was the first region in the world to move beyond traditional energy meteringthrough the widespread introduction of AMR which started in the 1980s. Today, intelligentgrids are becoming an integral part of the development of smart cities, and smart meters’ability to improve the reliability and resilience of energy supply constitutes an important driverof growth in the region. A majority of the large investor-owned utilities in North America arenow either fully deployed or in the implementation or planning phases of large-scale projects,and a second wave of deployments is now beginning for the early adopters. The penetrationof smart electricity meters in the region was 64 percent in 2019 and it is expected to increaseto 86 percent in 2025, primarily driven by large investor-owned utility projects in the US as therelatively mature market in Canada is only expected to see moderate growth.

Asia-Pacific meanwhile constitutes the world’s largest and fastest growing meter market withan estimated installed base of over 1.3 billion electricity and gas metering devices. Annualdemand for electricity meters in the region is in the range of 90–145 million units, with Chinaaccounting for around 70–80 percent of the volumes. The Asia-Pacific region is highlyfragmented in terms of the level of smart metering adoption and the regional markets can bedivided into three general groups. Two countries – China and New Zealand – have more orless completed their first wave of smart electricity meter rollouts. In China, second wavedeployments have already been initiated and are soon to begin in New Zealand as well.

South Korea and Japan are on the other hand in the midst of their nationwide deployments.While Japan is right on track to complete rollouts according to timeline by early 2025, SouthKorea has not been able to meet its initial 2020 deadline due to multiple severe delays. TheSouth Korean rollout is therefore now expected to go on for several more years. The thirdgroup consists of markets finding themselves in the early phases of smart meter deployments– Australia and India. Although Australia was early to deploy smart meters in the state ofVictoria, the market has since stayed dormant and just recently resumed deployments afterhaving switched to a retailer-led approach. The Indian market has after years of pilot projectsnow slowly begun large-scale deployments of smart metering, largely driven by ambitiousgovernmental targets to reach nationwide coverage within just a few years. In total, thepenetration of smart meters in Asia-Pacific stood at 69 percent in 2019 and is expected togrow to 82 percent in 2025.

The markets in North America and Asia-Pacific are largely dominated by local or regionalplayers and only a few companies – such as Landis+Gyr and Itron – have managed toestablish a major presence in both regions. China and South Korea constitute two particularlyisolated markets where a large number of domestic vendors serve the national utilities in theirrespective market. Similarly, the countries have also seen largely independent technologytrajectories in the smart meter communications space, with RF mesh historically preferred inNorth America, Japan and Australia while domestic PLC technologies dominate in China andSouth Korea, and cellular being the primary choice in New Zealand. Cellular communicationsis also expected to be a favoured option in India’s upcoming mass-deployments as well as inAustralia’s market-driven installations.