GE to Tap Demand for Smart Meters in $200 Billion Global Market  

BusinessWeek has a report on GE's interest in the smart meter / smart grid market - GE to Tap Demand for Smart Meters in $200 Billion Global Market.

General Electric Co. is poised to tap the $200 billion smart-meter market as nations upgrade more power meters to improve electricity use and lower costs.

More than a billion electricity measuring units may be changed to “smart meters” in the next two decades, said Luke Clemente, general manager for GE Energy’s digital energy business. A smart meter system may cost $100 to $200 a unit, depending on the technology used, and the business may be worth as much as $200 billion excluding add-on systems and devices, based on calculations from GE data. ...

The company is targeting U.K., Portugal, Spain, Germany and France as the European Union plans to replace 80 percent of their meters by 2020, the Atlanta-based GE official said. Smart grid installations may grow at “double digits” every year, he said, without giving details.

The U.S., which announced an $8 billion upgrade to the nation’s grid in October, plans to replace about 40 million of its 120 million meters with smart ones over three years. ...

China, where GE built a smart grid demonstration center in Yangzhou, plans to replace 400 million meters in five years, Clemente said. South Korea, Asia’s fourth-largest energy user, said in January that it may spend about 27.5 trillion won ($24.5 billion) by 2030 building so-called smart power grids.