Northeast Group, LLC's South America Smart Grid Market Forecast (2011-2020) projects the smart meter market alone will reach 104.5 million meters and $25.1 billion by 2020. Other smart grid technologies also will grow quickly in the region. Brazil will be first to begin large-scale deployments. Chile and Argentina will follow, with other countries set to launch deployments in the latter half of the decade.

“South America's potential for smart grid is often overlooked. In the U.S. and Europe where large-scale deployments are well underway, smart grid benefits center on demand reductions, savings in meter reading costs and reliability improvements. In the emerging market context, the benefit case often rests on electricity theft reduction, social and economic development benefits, and other region-specific drivers,” according to Northeast Group.

“The South America region exhibits several market conditions attractive for smart grid development compared with other emerging market regions such as Asia. These include per capita energy consumption and non-technical loss (theft) rates higher than Asia, as well as enormous potential for distributed generation. All are key drivers of smart grid, yet South America has lagged behind other emerging markets. This is about to change as governments in the region begin to take action in developing regulatory frameworks to encourage smart grid,” according to Northeast Group.

For more information, visit www.northeast-group.com.