The hot spot of investment in smart grid in European and American markets focuses on smart meters, the terminal of smart grid. According to the internet-like architecture, smart meters are equivalent to networked PCs, which shoulder more functions than PCs.
Parks Consulting, an American research company, said that the number of smart meters in the United States will jump from 5.5 million this year to 6.5438+0.9 million. It is not the world's major power companies that are at the forefront of smart grid, but the heavyweight technology companies that have experienced the baptism of the Internet bubble. The sensitive noses of these companies seem to have smelled the initial stage of the Internet from the smart grid.
Giants compete for deer.
At the forefront of smart grid terminal development is a little-known high-tech company-Yinquan. The company has been working hard on chips and software of smart meters for many years.
Smart meter is the user terminal of smart grid and the beginning of the development of the whole smart grid. SilverSpring has raised about $200 million, and its investors include GoogleVenture, a venture fund owned by Google. Morgan Stanley predicts that SilverSpring's revenue may reach $654.38 billion this year.
In fact, the heavyweight technology companies-Cisco, IBM, Microsoft and Google are not absent from the competition of smart grid, and they have made many innovations.
IBM, which has tasted the sweetness in large-scale basic intelligent projects, is already building the technical main line of power grid intelligent projects. This will include communication equipment erected along the power grid, as well as software and servers that handle massive data.
Cisco has also made great efforts in power network equipment and household energy management equipment, and declared that smart grid is the target of its next business of 654.38 billion yuan. Vodafone, a communication manufacturer, also aims at this market and is ready to add intelligent management elements of household energy consumption to its network. Microsoft and Google are also following the needs of consumers and seeking equipment manufacturers as partners.
The above-mentioned enterprises mainly compete for the distribution equipment market of smart grid. In terms of power transmission and transformation equipment, traditional power manufacturers are also gearing up. For example, General Electric, Siemens and ABB all try to introduce modern control systems, smart substations and energy storage equipment into the power grid.
Their slogan is almost unified, that is, to tell the world that smart grid is not just a hot smart meter.
Due to the flexible power consumption mechanism brought by smart grid, smart electric vehicles, smart appliances and intelligent furniture are also planning to enter this market.
Development and technology giants have ignited the smart grid market with the goal of winning large orders for electronic equipment. The American financial industry, which has fallen into disaster, also regards smart grid as a "life-saving straw". According to a statistic in the United States, smart grid and its related energy technologies have received more than half of the venture capital in the United States.
Of course, multinational companies actively participating in smart grid construction in the United States have already smelled the business opportunities of smart grid in China.