China is investing $250 billion during the next five years in constructing and developing smart grids for more efficient gathering and distribution of electricity in the country, with large-scale construction set to begin next year, according to an IHS iSuppli China Research topical report from information and analysis provider IHS.
Investment by China in smart grids will encourage the rollout of smart meters, a more advanced type of device that allows the meter to transmit recorded electric energy consumption to the public utility responsible for monitoring and billing. Already, smart meters form the bulk of electricity meters being produced today in China—at 86.3 percent of the country’s single-phase electricity meters, and 73.3 percent of polyphase electricity meters.
All told, production of electricity meters in China is projected to reach 102.8 million units at the end of 2011, up 7.2 percent from 95.9 million megawatts last year. And shipments of smart meters are expected to increase in the years to come as electricity meter production approaches 141.1 million units by 2015.
The effort to deploy more smart grids and smart meters, incorporated into China’s 12th Five-Year Plan, will be spearheaded by two state-controlled transmission companies—the State Grid Corp. of China (SGCC) and the China Southern Power Grid Corp. (CSG). SGCC covers 26 provinces or 88 percent of the country; while CSG is responsible for five provinces in southern China and links up with Hong Kong and Macao.
So far, SGCC has initiated five rounds of smart-meter bidding in 2011, with a fifth bidding to occur at the end of November at the time this article was written. Together, the five rounds of bidding could result in the procurement by SGCC of about 68.3 million units of electricity meters—59.7 million of which are made up of smart meters. Bidding from the fi ve rounds will exceed $1.8 billion, IHS believes, with SGCC indicating construction to begin in earnest starting next year.
The bidding this year follows in the wake of a $129.7 billion investment by SGCC from 2009 to 2011, and up to $10.6 billion will be set aside during the next five years by the state entity for smart-meter bidding.
As part of its ambitious rollout, SGCC aims also by 2015 to complete six Ultra-High Voltage (UHV) backbone transmission lines, 2,950 charging stations and 540,000 charging points for electric vehicles. Other infrastructure to be installed during this period are 6,100 smart transformer substations and some 230 million smart electricity meters.
Outside of the bidding initiative by SGCC, the smart meter market has derived considerable benefit from parallel developments, including a growing export sector that accounts for nearly one third of overall smart meter production in 2011. Exports this year will reach 30.8 million units, compared to shipments into the domestic sector of 72.0 million units.
A prevalent technology in smart meters is the use of microcontrollers (MCU) to conduct key functions of the meter. Here, Japan’s Renesas Electronics Corp. dominates with 59.8 percent market share, followed by U.S. companies Microchip Technology Inc. of Arizona with 13.3 percent and Dallas-based Texas Instruments Inc. with 8.2 percent.
Meanwhile, local Chinese vendor Renergy Inc. is the leader in the metrology integrated circuit market in smart meters for measuring energy consumption, while domestic firms Eastsoft and Fuxing Xiaocheng control the Power Line Communication (PLC) space for smart meter communication interfaces.
Learn More > Energy Meter Markets to Ignite Following $250 Billion Smart Grid Investment