Australia and New Zealand to invest $6.1bn in smart grid infrastructure
Recent South Australia blackouts reinforce importance of smart infrastructure
March 23, 2017, Washington, DC: Australia and New Zealand have among the most developed power sectors in the world and are in the process of investing in smart grid infrastructure to further improve utilities’ performance. However, the region is not without its challenges as South Australia has been in the headlines recently for power shortages. The Australian state in particular can benefit from smart grid infrastructure investment, including smart metering, battery storage, advanced sensors and communications in the power grid and other initiatives. Overall smart grid infrastructure investment across Australia and New Zealand is projected to total $6.1 billion over the period 2017-2027, according to a new study published today by Northeast Group, LLC.
“The recent South Australia blackouts reinforce the importance of smart infrastructure investment in the power sector,” according to Ben Gardner, president of Northeast Group. “Smart grid infrastructure investment will occur not just in the state of South Australia but across all of Australia and New Zealand. The market opportunity remains largely open for vendors, with the exception of metering in New Zealand and the Australian state of Victoria, which have largely completed their smart meter rollouts. The rest of Australia is poised to begin large-scale smart meter rollouts in the next several years, and market growth for other smart grid segments, most recently the battery storage market, is beginning to accelerate across the region.”
Smart grid regulations including a government-mandated rollout in the Australian state of Victoria have helped to drive the market to date. At the same time, New Zealand has made significant progress without any broad-based regulations and has nearly completed a national smart meter rollout based on the strength of a strong business case. New national regulations in Australia are designed to boost competition among meter service providers, but cost overruns and customer backlash in the Victoria rollout have led the national and respective state governments to primarily pursue a market-led approach going forward.
The competitive landscape of Australia’s market has been dominated by the large international vendors. Osaki/EDMI, Secure Meters, Honeywell, Itron, Landis+Gyr, and Silver Spring Networks are among the market leaders. Tesla is also making a push to establish itself in both the electric vehicle and battery storage markets in Australia and New Zealand as well as various island nations and territories in the Pacific.
Northeast Group’s Oceania Smart Grid: Market Forecast (2017-2027) study is 33 pages long and comes with a dataset in Excel. To order a copy of the study, please visit: www.northeast-group.com
ABOUT: Northeast Group, LLC is a Washington, DC-based smart infrastructure market intelligence firm. www.northeast-group.com