Microgrids revenue to reach $17.3 Billion by 2017
February 20, 2012
According to a new report from Pike Research, microgrid capacity worldwide will experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 22% over the next five years, reaching 4.7 gigawatts by 2017. That represents $17.3 billion in annual worldwide revenue by the same year.
Microgrids, or integrated systems in which distributed energy resources (DERs) operate as a single, autonomous grid either in parallel to or isolated from the existing utility power grid, offer customers and distribution utilities new ways to strengthen reliability and manage variable, bidirectional resources.
These include:
• fewer line losses,
• a lower demand on transmission infrastructure,
• the ability to rely on more localized sources of power generation.
All of these benefits are stimulating increased demand for microgrids worldwide, in a range of application scenarios including campus environments, military operations, remote/off-grid settings, community/utility systems, and commercial and industrial markets.
Microgrids still face significant barriers to wide scale adoption. As of 2012, not a single national government has developed an integrated or comprehensive policy creating a viable, vibrant market for customer-driven microgrids.
