TRANSITION TO SMART, DONE BY 2018

98% of Smart Meters in North America to be Covered by a Meter Data Management System by 2018
October 28, 2011 (Pike Research)

"Meter data management (MDM) systems are software systems that accept data from utility meters, validate those data, and make the data available in many applications. Historically, MDM systems collected meter reading data from advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and automated meter reading (AMR) systems to create accurate bills with little manual intervention. That is changing…

"…MDM systems have emerged as the centerpiece of the AMI environment, a key component of the smart grid…[T]he expansion of smart grid deployments is leading to significant growth in installation of MDM systems and the adoption of related professional services…[B]y 2018, 98% of all smart meters in North America will be covered by an MDM system…In other developed economies, such as Western Europe and the advanced economies of East Asia, that percentage will reach 80%..."

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"The emerging competitive landscape includes specialist MDM vendors such as eMeter, EnergyICT, Ecologic Analytics, and Aclara; meter manufacturers that have their own MDM suites, such as Itron; and real-time data and event vendors such as OSIsoft.

"Meanwhile, large players in the database and enterprise resource planning (ERP) sector, such as SAP and Oracle, are aggressively targeting the utilities as well. Such vendors could help solve the technical challenge of the ‘data deluge’ likely to accompany the collection of large amounts of data from millions of meters…Total worldwide MDM revenue…is expected to reach $490 million by 2018, representing almost a ten-fold increase from 2011…"