A Microsoft survey has pointed up the reason for the strong interest of major IT players in the smart grid - just 8% of utilities worldwide have completed smart grid implementations.

 

Most power companies haven’t even yet started, although 37% have projects underway, the survey revealed.

 

“[T]he disruptive nature of the smart grid revolution, and the innovations it brings, has caught many in the industry by surprise, including many utilities that already have embraced smart grid technologies,” said Jon Arnold, managing director of Microsoft’s worldwide power & utilities group.

 

He said the magnitude of change facing power companies was overwhelming, “especially given utilities’ existing asset and technology investments combined with the need to ensure profitability and reliability.”

 

Respondents cited financial concerns as the main challenge to smart grid development. They also said regulatory factors were the biggest key to smart grid technology deployment decisions

 

Only 8% believed their utility had a technology architecture that was adequate to support new processes and technologies. To fund all of these investments, 77% expect their budgets for smart grid technologies to increase over the next two to three years.

 

63% of respondents in the Americas think today’s IT is not sufficient to meet future challenges, compared with 45% and 42% in EMEA and Asia-Pacific respectively.

 

The survey found that 42% were currently incorporating distributed generation sources such as wind and solar on rooftops and another 25% would start to do so in the next one to three years.