See also: The Electronics Weekly guide to Smart Metering
Despite all the interest in smart metering, especially since President Obama included it in his $787bn stimulus package, the market for smart meters is sinking across the world, according to IMS Research.
In the first quarter of 2009, IMS Research estimated that the advanced meter market in North America experienced its second consecutive quarter of sequential decline.
IMS Research estimates that in EMEA and the Americas, advanced meter shipments contracted by over 15% from the same period in 2008, and sequentially contracted roughly 10% from the fourth quarter of 2008.
President Obama's $787bn package included $4.5bn for a project to develop smart metering. This interested a number of electronics companies. In the UK, the wireless microcontroller fabless semiconductor company Jennic noticed a rise in the number of its US customers developing smart meters.
"The stimulus package is making things happen ten times faster than they otherwise would have happened," Jim Lindop, Founder and CEO of Jennic, told Electronics Weekly, "we have relationships with a number of US companies developing smart energy products. A year ago we had two or three customers who were looking at smart energy, now we have about 20 customers looking at smart-grid projects."
The UK Government has a smart utility meter plan which could see all UK homes equipped with electronics-rich metering systems by the end of 2020.
"Based on our consultation impact assessment, rolling out smart meters to all households will deliver net benefits of between £2.5bn and £3.6bn over the next 20 years. These benefits fall to suppliers, to customers and to the country as a whole," said the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
It is proposed that smart meters will: allow readings to be taken remotely; give householders real time information on their energy use through a local display; allow consumption to be subject to different tariffs at different times of the day.
"Smart meters are a key step towards future smart grids which have the potential to help our shift to a low-carbon economy - making it easier for renewable generation to feed into the grid, including micro and community level generation and will support the decarbonisation of heat and transport through the greater use of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles," said the DECC.
See also: Electronics Weekly Live, the "How To" exhibition and conference taking place within National Electronics Week, 16 - 19 June, Earls Court 2. Themes of the show are: Eco-Design, Embedded processor design, Using Linux, Power-efficient design, Test for embedded systems, Wireless system design.
See also: Mannerisms, the blog of David Manners. Updated twice daily, it's the distinctive, entertaining, authoritative and never dull commentary on the semiconductor industry, from someone who knows. Sign up for the Mannerisms eNewsletter.