The smart grid industry is learning some “home truths” about expansion: Until the average Joe has a plug-in car in his garage, or needs to cut monthly overhead, or wants to enjoy the convenience of remote-control appliances, the industry will not experience a “tipping point” or the “social epidemic” that Malcolm Gladwell described in his recent book.
This is not to say that the smart grid pandemic—the “germ” of the exciting and practical idea is not taking hold among early adopters, utilities, academics, and governing bodies. As electric utilities strive to reduce peak demand and provide consumers with a powerful set of energy efficiency tools as part of their smart grid initiatives, the home energy management (HEM) market is beginning to take shape.
A recent report released by Boulder, Colorado-based Pike Research on June 8 anticipates that the increased energy efficiency concerns of consumers, along with utility energy efficiency programs, will stimulate greater demand for HEM capabilities, including in-home display (IHD) devices, Web-based energy management dashboards, and smartphone applications.
Pike Research (News - Alert) forecasts that worldwide users of home energy management systems will reach 63 million by 2020, up from just over 1 million in 2011. This figure includes cumulative shipments of IHDs along with active users of Web dashboards and mobile applications. Pike Research anticipates that, at the midpoint of the forecast period in 2015, HEM users will reach 13 million—which represents a downgrade from its previous forecast of 28 million, published in the fourth quarter of 2009. This downgrade is primarily due to slower than anticipated utility adoption of home energy management, along with a relative lack of pull from consumer demand.
“The home energy management revolution will be delayed, but market growth will still be substantial by 2020,” says Pike Research Director Bob Gohn. “Utility programs are picking up steam, and are aided in some regions by a strong government push. In addition, new technologies, such as electric vehicles, will be a significant driver of HEM adoption in the long term. When the garage becomes the gas station, consumers will demand more sophisticated energy management capabilities, and utilities will need greater visibility into residential energy consumption patterns.”
Gohn adds that that HEM market is still highly fragmented, with an increasingly crowded competitive landscape. Solutions range from HEM-specific IHDs to Web-based dashboards and mobile energy management applications. These offerings are provided by pure-play HEM vendors as well as multi-product, multi-channel consumer product and service providers.
Gohn says that the companies to watch over the next few years will include not only the current field of competitors, but also digital home heavyweights such as consumer electronics manufacturers and broadband service providers, which have an increasing interest in adding energy management to their suite of products and services.
Pike Research’s report, “Home Energy Management”, examines varying go-to-market strategies, and provides market forecasts by technology and world region. Key vendors, applications, and deployments are profiled in depth. The report highlights multiple utility programs and includes insights on the dynamics of consumer demand for HEM systems.
An Executive Summary of the report is available for free download on the firm’s website.
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Cheryl Kaften is an accomplished communicator who has written for consumer and corporate audiences. She has worked extensively for MasterCard (News - Alert) Worldwide, Philip Morris USA (Altria), and KPMG, and has consulted for Estee Lauder and the Philadelphia Inquirer Newspapers. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Jamie Epstein
