Berg Insight says worldwide installed base of smart electricity meters will reach 602.7 million units in 2016

Gothenburg, Sweden: New research from the analyst firm Berg Insight says that the worldwide installed base of smart electricity meters will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 26.6 percent between 2010 and 2016 to reach 602.7 million at the end of the period. During the next five years, penetration rates for smart metering technology are projected to increase from around 15–25 percent today to around 50 percent in Europe and North America and over 75 percent in Asia-Pacific. By 2020, penetration rates are expected to approach 100 percent in most developed countries with massive rollouts also taking place in new territories such as Latin America, India and the Middle East.

“Securing a sustainable supply of energy will be one of the greatest challenges for mankind in the 21st century”, said Tobias Ryberg, senior analyst, Berg Insight and author of the report. “Smart grid technologies will make a major contribution to achieving this goal by improving the efficiency at all levels of the electricity supply chain from generation to transmission, distribution and consumption. Smart meters are the gateways that connect consumers to the smart grid and enable them to interact with other players in the ecosystem.”

Berg Insight ranks Europe and North America as the most advanced adopters of smart metering technology today. A majority of the countries in Western Europe have passed legislation that requires nationwide rollouts before the end of this decade and a few such as Italy and Sweden already have fully operational systems. All EU member states that have not already done so are required to perform a cost-benefit analysis of smart metering before September 2012. In the US, important states such as California and Texas have mandated the introduction of smart meters or given their approval for massive rollouts proposed by utilities. Furthermore the federal government has granted nearly US$ 5 billion in funding for smart grid projects that frequently involve smart meter rollouts.

China and other countries in East Asia are in an early phase of adoption but have very aggressive installation plans. The State Grid Corporation of China is currently deploying 50–60 million advanced electricity meters per year as preparation for the construction of a nationwide smart metering network within five years. The new generation of meters is prepared for two-way communication once a network connection becomes available. Elsewhere in the region, South Korea has an ambitious plan for a nationwide smart grid network that is being implemented by the national utility KEPCO and in Japan the government is looking to smart meters as a part of the solution to the new challenges facing the country’s electricity industry.

Download report brochure: Smart Metering – World 2011

About Berg Insight
Berg Insight offers premier business intelligence to the telecom industry. We produce concise reports providing key facts and strategic insights about pivotal developments in our focus areas. Our vision is to be the most valuable source of intelligence for our customers.

For additional information, please contact:
Johan Fagerberg, CEO
E-mail: johan.fagerberg@berginsight.com
Phone: +46 31 711 30 91
Twitter: www.twitter.com/berginsight

Berg Insight says smart meter penetration in North America will reach 50 percent by 2016

Gothenburg, Sweden: According to new a research report from the analyst firm Berg Insight, the installed base of smart electricity meters in North America will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 22.5 percent between 2010 and 2016 to reach 87.4 million at the end of the period. Over the next five years, smart meter penetration among residential electricity customers in the US and Canada is projected to increase from around 20 percent in mid-2011 to more than 50 percent by the end of 2016. Berg Insight anticipates the region will have close to 100 percent penetration by 2020.

“North America has been at the forefront of metering innovation for many decades and is now embracing the latest smart technologies that improve grid performance”, said Tobias Ryberg, senior analyst, Berg Insight and author of the report. “The US federal government and many states have successfully stimulated the demand for smart metering solutions through a combination of financial incentives and regulatory requirements. Full-scale rollouts are now underway at nearly half of the largest investor-owned utilities, as well as among hundreds of municipals and electric cooperatives.” California and Texas have passed legislation that require smart meters for all electricity customers and regulators in other major states such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Georgia have given their approval for smart meter plans proposed by utilities. In Canada, Ontario completed the first major rollout of smart meters in early 2011 and new projects now underway in British Columbia and Québec are set to boost the penetration for smart metering in the country to around two-thirds of the households.

According to the report, wireless mesh networking technologies dominate the smart meter communication marketplace in North America. Most of the leading vendors provide solutions that use the license-free 900 MHz frequency band. Alternative technologies such as cellular networks and power-line carrier are however starting to gain more traction. TNMP, an electric utility with 230,000 customers in Texas, will deploy the first large-scale smart metering system in the US using point-to-point GPRS communication until 2016.

Download report brochure: Smart Metering in North America and Asia-Pacific

About Berg Insight
Berg Insight offers premier business intelligence to the telecom industry. We produce concise reports providing key facts and strategic insights about pivotal developments in our focus areas. Our vision is to be the most valuable source of intelligence for our customers.

For additional information, please contact:
Johan Fagerberg, CEO
E-mail: johan.fagerberg@berginsight.com
Phone: +46 31 711 30 91
Twitter: www.twitter.com/berginsight

Energy revolution at El Hierro

This video was published on BBC NEWS in 2009 but still interesting.
Producer & Reporter: Ramón J. Goni

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7951286.stm

Progress Energy mobile website overview

http://youtu.be/aOwl5Fjpwnw

Berg Insight says 98 billion mobile applications will be downloaded in 2015

Gothenburg, Sweden: According to a new research report from the analyst firm Berg Insight, the number of mobile application downloads worldwide will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 56.6 percent between 2010 and 2015 to reach 98 billion at the end of the period. Berg Insight estimates that revenues from paid applications, in-app purchases and subscription services – so called direct revenues – reached € 1.6 billion in 2010. Berg Insight forecasts direct app store revenues to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 40.7 percent to reach € 8.8 billion in 2015. Apple’s iOS is the current leader in direct monetisation of mobile applications and will keep the number one position during the forecast period. The Android and Windows Phone operating systems are anticipated to be number two and three respectively in 2015.

“Even though the download numbers will increase during the forecast period, most apps are free to download and app monetisation will be a challenge for developers”, said Johan Svanberg, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight. “Free to download monetisation strategies such as in-app advertising and in-app purchasing will be increasingly important. This is especially true in the APAC region, which will account for over 40 percent of all mobile app downloads in 2015.” He adds that for the next coming years, the native mobile app is here to stay. New web technologies such as HTML5 are promising and will eventually be relevant alternatives to native apps. It is also important to remember that web apps and native apps are not mutual exclusives and publishers looking for maximizing reach should develop for the web as well as for the major mobile platforms.

Download report brochure: The Mobile Application Market

About Berg Insight
Berg Insight offers premier business intelligence to the telecom industry. We produce concise reports providing key facts and strategic insights about pivotal developments in our focus areas. Our vision is to be the most valuable source of intelligence for our customers.

For additional information, please contact:
Johan Fagerberg, CEO
E-mail: johan.fagerberg@berginsight.com
Phone: +46 31 711 30 91
Twitter: www.twitter.com/berginsight

Intersolar 2011 – Smart metering demonstration – STonlineMedia

BC Hydro Smart Metering Program

http://youtu.be/cvKAxtJjOdM

DHL Smart Meters

JUNIFER SYSTEMS’ UTILITY BILLING OFFERING CHOSEN BY POWERCO, ONE OF NEW ZEALAND’S LARGEST ELECTRICITY AND GAS DISTRIBUTION COMPANIES

Junifer Systems, the global provider of leading back office billing solutions for the utility industry, has been selected after a competitive tendering process to provide its flagship Utility Billing system to one of the largest electricity and gas distribution companies in New Zealand.

The Junifer Utility CIS system is a modular end to end customer management and billing system designed specifically to support the unique challenges encountered by both legacy utility systems and the new requirements resulting from the industry wide Smart Grid rollout programmes.

The unique framework underpinning the system enables specific and complex business requirements to be delivered in short timescales. The ease of use and adaptability of the software ensures that the end customer accrues a quick return on investment and gets a ‘best of breed’ solution to support current and future billing requirements.

The Junifer system will interface with 3rd party systems using web services to provide day state management and consumption data. Bill processes and calculations will be streamlined and optimised so that bill production time is reduced from days to a matter of hours.

The deployment will initially focus on electricity GXP and gas installation billing, with electricity installation billing to follow soon after.

Saul Nurtman, Managing Director for Junifer Systems said:

“The selection of Junifer Systems by such a well established company as Powerco to provide an integral component of their business systems represents an endorsement of the Junifer Utility CIS platform in the utilities industry. We are very excited about this opportunity and also the potential to grow the business in the Asia Pacific region”

Dave Hill, Programme Manager for Powerco said

“The flexibility of the Junifer product was a major factor in our solution selection process. With multiple utility types, and regional variations to billing rules, the ability to adapt the solution to quite complex billing requirements was essential. The Junifer team were highly responsive to evolving requirements, and added a lot of value to the process of process definition”.

About Powerco
Powerco is New Zealand’s second largest electricity and gas distribution company. Their network area spreads across the upper central and lower central North Island servicing approximately 420,000 consumers representing 46% of gas connections and 16% of electricity connections in New Zealand.

About Junifer Systems
Headquartered in London, Junifer Systems provides complete Customer Information Systems (CIS) to the utility industry, specialising in billing systems for Smart Meter deployments.
For more details please visit www.junifersystems.com

Media Contact:
Lindsay Spencer
Tria Nomina
T: +44 (0) 870 850 2157
E: lindsay.spencer@trianomina.com

Berg Insight says HSPA/LTE accounts for 20.6 percent of all PC broadband connections in Europe

Gothenburg, Sweden: According to a new research report from the analyst firm Berg Insight, HSPA/LTE accounted for 20.6 percent of the total number of broadband connections in Europe at the end of 2010. The number of HSPA/LTE mobile broadband subscribers (connected PCs and tablets) grew by 33 percent year-on-year in 2010 to reach 33.9 million and is forecasted to continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.9 percent to 96 million by 2016. The North American market has so far evolved at a slower pace, with mobile broadband accounting for just 13.2 percent of the total number of connections. Between 2010 and 2016, the North American market is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 25.8 percent to reach 58 million subscribers at the end of the period.

The levels of adoption of mobile broadband vary significantly across Europe. “Austria is the most advanced market with a penetration rate of over 20 percent, corresponding to 46 percent of all broadband connections in the country. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Ireland and Portugal also have penetration rates above 10 percent. Belgium, Switzerland and Greece have on the other hand penetration rates of less than 3 percent”, said Lars Kurkinen, Telecom Analyst, Berg Insight. Also the pricing varies across different markets, with subscriptions costing around four times more in the most expensive countries compared to the least expensive ones. The lowest prices can be found in the Baltic countries, Poland and Austria with average monthly prices ranging € 8–11 for a 3 GB bundle at a data rate of at least 3.6 Mbps. The highest prices can be found in Switzerland and Spain (€ 40 per month).

Huawei has established itself as the world’s largest supplier of mobile broadband terminals holding a market share of 49 percent and has a particularly strong foothold in Europe. ZTE is the second largest vendor with clear margins capturing a market share of 31 percent. Berg Insight estimates the total global number of shipped external mobile broadband devices in 2010 to 92.7 million, with Europe and North America accounting for 27.4 million units and 8.5 million units respectively. In addition, shipments of embedded modules reached an estimated 9.5 million units. Two of the largest telecom vendors – Ericsson and Qualcomm – entered the market for embedded solutions in 2008 and have managed to sign contracts with many of the major notebook vendors. The two companies captured a market share of 83 percent together on this market in 2010.

Download report brochure: The Mobile Broadband Connectivity Market

About Berg Insight
Berg Insight offers premier business intelligence to the telecom industry. We produce concise reports providing key facts and strategic insights about pivotal developments in our focus areas. Our vision is to be the most valuable source of intelligence for our customers.

For additional information, please contact:
Johan Fagerberg, CEO
E-mail: johan.fagerberg@berginsight.com
Phone: +46 31 711 30 91
Twitter: www.twitter.com/berginsight