Market Data: Microgrids

The microgrid market is currently moving into full-scale commercialization with the launch of dozens of successful pilot programs globally, decreasing costs of solar photovoltaic (PV), and a relaxing of prohibitions against distributed generation operation during times of grid stress, including the ability to island from the larger utility grid during emergencies.  As with any new innovation, adoption of microgrids will increase more rapidly as awareness of – and confidence in – the platform’s capabilities grows.

For a variety of reasons, North America (and especially the United States) still represents the best overall market for all microgrid segments in terms of aggregate capacity.  Key factors include pockets of poor power quality scattered throughout the United States and the structure of behind-the-meter markets for distributed energy resources (DER).  Worldwide, Navigant Research forecasts that revenue from deployments of microgrids will be just under $10 billion in 2013, increasing to just more than $40 billion annually by 2020 in the average scenario.  This is significantly higher than previous market forecasts due to new market intelligence suggesting that microgrids, including retrofit projects incorporating legacy assets, require greater investment than previously recognized.

This Navigant Research report provides newly updated capacity and annual vendor revenue forecasts for the five primary microgrid market segments: commercial/industrial, community/utility, campus/institutional, military, and remote (off-grid) microgrids.  The report also offers capacity and revenue forecasts for utility distribution microgrids – a segment that overlaps with community/utility and remote segments – as well as microgrid enabling technologies, the latter being the group of key components deployed within microgrids.  The economic and public policy assumptions behind the forecasts are explained in detail, along with data trends and regional market drivers.