Fueled by growing electricity needs, that are driving demand for reliable and safe electrical networks, digital substation market is anticipated to undergo a period of exponential growth over the forthcoming years.
Digital substations bring great flexibility to the electricity grid, particularly in terms of engineering, design, operation, and installation. Attributing to this flexibility, modifications can be accommodated easily, off-the-shelf solutions to problems can be adopted, system integrity can be assured through embedded diagnostics and the amount of cabling, and by association costs, can be reduced greatly.
These prominent benefits are majorly responsible for promoting adoption of digital substations over its conventional counterpart across several regions. Additionally, numerous grid upgradation activities across number of developed nations is expected to further bring growth to digital substation industry share during the forthcoming years.
Impact of rising global electricity demand on global digital substation market size
Attributing to the rapid growth of several emerging economies, demand for electricity has been going up substantially over the past couple of years. Going forward, to meet energy requirements while adhering to long-term carbon emission reduction goals, decentralization and digital transformation of the energy infrastructure in becoming critical.
It is anticipated that this need would be opening up greater avenues of growth for the digital substation market in coming years.
The Potential: According to the International Energy Agency, in 2018, demand for electricity across the world went up by 4% approximately 900 terawatt-hours (TWh). The demand increased nearly twice as quick as overall energy demand, reaching its fastest pace since 2010.
The Conditions: While nuclear and renewable energy sources facilitated a majority of the increase in energy demand, power-generation from gas and coal fired plants also increased considerably, driving up carbon emissions consequently.
The Opportunity: Today, efforts to rein in carbon emissions are picking up more momentum. Incorporation of electricity networks that are more sustainable and electrification throughout stand-alone electrical grid infrastructure are increasingly presenting favorable growth scenarios.
This trend is expected to further foster the growth of digital substation market size across several regions.
Impact of the ongoing digitalization of energy sector in Europe on digital substation market trends
In 2016, the European Commission introduced a regulation pertaining to the Governance of the Union. Under this regulation, the Commission unveiled numerous forthcoming initiatives throughout the Union’s energy field.
The Drivers: The overall performance, cost and deployment of numerous clean energy technologies have drastically improved over the past few years. This ongoing shift towards greater digitalization of the energy sector has been predominantly enabled by advancements in analytics, data, and connectivity.
The Projection: According to Phoenix Forums; the organizers of IntelliSub Europe 2018, numerous European utilities are presently preparing to make substantial investments in the development of next generation digital substation technologies.
Influence of India’s untapped power sector on digital substation market growth
According to the India Brand Equity Foundation, India’s power sector is considered to be one of the most diversified energy sectors in the world. Demand for electricity throughout the country has grown rapidly over the past years.
The Demand: Demand for electricity in India is anticipated to rise significantly over the coming years. To address this demand, sizable additions to the nation’s currently installed power generation capacity is required.
The Potential: In 2018, India’s power sector ranked 4th throughout the Asia Pacific, among 25 other nations, on the index that gauges the country’s overall power. Currently, India’s power sector is also undergoing a momentous change, which is further redefining industry outlook.
The Indian Government is focusing on attaining its ‘Power for all’ goal and has expedited capacity addition throughout the country.
The Opportunity: Apart from bolstering its generation capacity, the Indian Government has also commissioned a number of smart-city initiatives wherein it intends to enhance overall infrastructure across tier-1 and tier-2 cities.
These initiatives would be opening up a new pathway for the digital substation market players during the forecast timeframe. In fact, in 2018 Swiss-Swedish multinational corporation, ABB, received a new order from Engineering and Procurement Company Stelmec Ltd. for ABB Ability™ enabled digital substation technology.
This technology would be operated by the Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company Limited. As these initiatives gain more momentum, they are projected to fuel the expansion of digital substation in India and overall digital substation industry expansion in the Asia Pacific.
Impact of substation automation system’s growing prominence on global digital substation industry outlook
The growing penetration of digitalization throughout power grid infrastructures across the world is putting further emphasis on the digital substation industry’s component segment, substation automation system.
The Opportunity: Rapidly growing competition is impelling a number of power providers to further concentrate the organization’s overall focus on attaining system productivity. With the primary goal of enhancing the level of customer satisfaction and reducing operating costs. Achieving these goals typically involves upgrading of the ageing infrastructure.
Substation automation delivers the opportunity to further reduce maintenance and operational costs, boosting plant productivity with the help of improved schemes and condition monitoring for power transformers and circuit breakers among others.
The Leverage: With growing availability of easy-to-install substation automation solutions; like ABB’s modular systems, upgradation of older control and protection systems has become significantly easier.
The substation automation system segment is expected to leverage this availability to drive product sales, fueling global digital substation industry size expansion in the process.
All in all, impelled by growing demand for electricity, the digitalization of Europe’s energy sector, the potential of India’s energy sector and the availability of innovative components like substation automation systems, adoption rates for digital substations are slated to keep rising over the coming years. Global Market Insights, Inc., estimates that global digital substation market size would be surpassing by $13 billion by 2025.