One manifestation of that trend in the coming years will be the accelerated deployment of Microgrids, which are “islanded” power generation and distribution areas that can operate autonomously from the larger grid infrastructure.
The cleantech market intelligence firm forecasts that over 3GW of new Microgrid capacity will come on line globally by 2015, representing a cumulative investment of $7.8 billion by that time and an annual market for Microgrid systems of $2.1 billion.
Pike Research expects that North America will be the largest market for Microgrids over the next several years, representing 74% of total worldwide capacity by 2015. In North America, the largest segment will be institutional microgrids, followed by commercial/industrial and community grids. In other regions, however, the story is different and community microgrids are expected to be the largest category in Europe and Asia.
Pike Research’s report, “Microgrids”, forecasts five segments of the microgrid market. It also examines technologies that are integral to microgrid deployments and assesses players in the nascent industry ecosystem.
