Asia's smart-grid market surpassing United States

Asia is focusing on developing a smart-grid market centered around several key players. China, India, South Korea, and Japan are at the head of the class in Asia's smart-grid market, with China and India projected to take up 75 percent of the market by 2015. In fact, China will soon overtake the United States as the leading smart-grid investor in 2010.

The funding will go towards projects such as renewable-energy storage technologies, power-transmission monitoring systems and intelligent substations. It will also fund other technologies such as electric-vehicle charging, automatic-power distribution, smart meters, and information systems for electricity use.


Asia demands a smart-grid capability that is quite diverse in nature. The Asian market displays a wide range of smart-grid activities, from reflecting the sophisticated nature of electricity demand in developed nations such as Japan and South Korea, to the need for first deployment of grids and massive grid upgrades in the developing economies of India and China. The massive upgrades, however, are mostly emblematic of the need to updgrade the entire energy grid in Asia, meaning even the more sophisticated grids. These are believed to be in need of further improvements to keep up with energy demand in developed Asian nations.