World Market For Energy Management, SCADA, And Distribution Management Systems Climbs To $1.4 Billion

Newton-Evans Research Company introduces its new summary of findings and observations of transmission and distribution monitoring and control systems used in many of the world's key electric power utilities. This study includes findings from more than 200 North American power utilities and 50-plus international utilities from 41 countries.

This New Study of the Global Electrical Power Market Incorporates Findings from Every World Region and Provides Market Assessment and Outlook for Global Markets.

Highlights from some of the 18+ individual topics researched in the global study of mission critical, real-time electric utility operational systems include the following:

• OUTAGE MANAGEMENT: Almost thirty percent of the international utilities surveyed this year have implemented a separate outage management system (OMS). About 25% of the group plans to implement OMS as a separate system from SCADA/EMS by 2007. The largest international utilities were more likely to have already implemented an OMS than were their smaller counterparts. European and Asia-Pacific regional utilities were more likely to have implemented an OMS than were counterparts in other world regions.

• GENERATION MANAGEMENT: Generation management systems (GMS) are also experiencing an increased level of activity this year, at least among those vertically integrated domestic North American utilities serving more than one half million customers. Most others (75%) continue to rely on automatic generation control (AGC) applications resident on their distribution SCADA systems for linking to power plant-based control systems (DCS¡¦s) or related power supply resources. Internationally, only a handful of participating utilities indicated use of, or plans for, a separate GMS.

• LINKAGES TO EXTERNAL SYSTEMS: Linkage to other utility enterprise systems continued to be on the increase on a global scale; despite cyber security concerns. For many sites, the key to remaining secure seems to be either: (a) the restricted provision of non-real-time access via periodic downloads to authorized requestors or (b) indirect access to and from the control system via historian files.

• EXTERNAL SERVICES REQUIRED: By mid-2005, about one-third of the international respondents, and one half of the North American respondents indicated a current need for one or more of the nine listed ¡§services¡¨ that could be available from external service providers. For the North American respondents now requiring these services, training services were viewed as most important (34%), followed by ¡§long-term maintenance agreements¡¨ (25%) and ¡§installation services¡¨ (21%). Among international utility officials, training of personnel was also cited highly, followed by long-term maintenance agreements with the control system supplier. By 2007, more emphasis was placed on use of professional consulting services related to control center operations and to distribution automation-related services.

• Overall Spending for Control Systems: Overall spending for SCADA and EMS systems sold to the world community of electric utilities and independent transmission systems operators during January 2003-August 2005 reached more than $1.4 billion USD, based on Newton-Evans database of more than 210 awards recorded in 50 countries for this period. More than 50% of the total amount was awarded using open bid procurements.

The report has three major sections:
1. North American Study Highlights
2. International Regional Study Highlight
3. World Market Assessment and Outlook

The report is more than 75 pages in length and includes narrative summaries from more than 18 individual research topics, and accompanying charts and figures. Forecasts for utility and ISO spending on EMS, SCADA and DMS are provided for each of six world regions.

This report is Prepared for Suppliers of Automation Systems, Information Technology and Infrastructure Equipment to Electric Utilities and Utility Operations Staffs.

SOURCE: Energy Business Reports