This report provides Transforma Insights’ view on the Generation market. This segment comprises Power Generation and Microgeneration.
Climate change is a major cause of concern as temperature across the world is rising rapidly causing a series of natural disasters and impacting human lives adversely. The need for sustainable sources of energy has grown to help countries achieve their sustainability targets. This has led to high adoption of clean energy production and a growth in these energy-producing facilities. The adoption of clean energy technology solutions will also increase the use of IoT to properly manage them throughout their life. Sensors functioning on a range of long and short-range technologies will be deployed on energy producing equipment to gain insights into their proper utilisation and function. These solutions will ensure that devices are working at their optimal capacity at all times and provide timely alerts around any maintenance needs to ensure that downtime is reduced.
The report provides a detailed definition of the sector, analysis of market development and profiles of the key vendors in the space. It also provides a summary of the current status of adoption and Transforma Insights’ ten-year forecasts for the market. The forecasts include analysis of the number of IoT connections by geography, the technologies used and revenue.
A full set of forecast data, including country-level forecasts, sector break-downs and public/private network splits, is available through the IoT Forecast tool.
This section begins with a short description of global climate change across the world, which has led countries to depend more on sustainable energy sources, eventually leading to heavy investment in clean energy projects. For instance, globally, governments have allocated around USD1.34 trillion to clean energy alternatives since 2020. It then discusses the economic benefits for operators and stresses the importance of IoT solutions in these clean energy technology solutions. For example, sensors can be deployed on energy production equipment to gain insights into their operation. It also mentions the commonly used data transmission technologies, both for Power Generation as well as for Microgeneration.
This section has been further categorised into:
This subsection of the report discusses thermal power plants representing the highest share of global electricity generation as well as contributing the highest amounts of emissions (like 98% of SO2 emissions and 94% of mercury emissions), resulting in the replacement or upgradation of the existing power plants, which increases their efficiencies.
This subsection discusses the potential of retrofitting existing powerplants with IoT solutions. For instance, these solutions can generate data which ensures fine-tune combustion inside plants and optimise turbine operations in real-time.
This subsection mostly explains how the rapid depletion of fossil fuels and changing climate have resulted in the adoption of more efficient and cost-effective sources in the last two decades. For instance, 30% of the global energy was produced from renewable sources in 2022 – 10 percentage points higher than in 2010.
This subsection prioritises the adoption of IoT technologies in the generation of renewable energy, since these technologies effectively deal with the primary challenge of the distributed nature of renewable energy, by enabling operators to check on the function of systems in real-time - lead to lesser operational costs. It also touches upon remote diagnostics and predictive maintenance, and discusses how it can ensure significant savings for operators and other benefits, like improving workplace safety.
This subsection charts the connectivity technologies currently used for Generation, such as Ethernet. It explains how LPWA will play a crucial role in future, owing to its distinctive advantages like being cheaper and offering long-range coverage and discusses satellite technology being used to connect remote power plants. It also stresses the importance of strong security measures to save generation equipment from cyberattacks, which can disrupt the flow of critical data and energy. A few examples of relevant IoT deployments have also been provided here, like ONYX Insights providing wind monitoring solutions to EOS in Japan.
This section first defines the concept of microgeneration, its benefits (like reducing carbon emission resulting from electricity generation), and the connectivity technologies it uses and their benefits (like Short Range to provide updates on the status and operation of the equipment).
This subsection describes how solar panel installations prove to be an economical investment despite their high upfront costs. It also talks about some of the steps taken by various companies to reduce the upfront costs of solar panels. It then focuses on the deployment of IoT sensors that are linked to solar equipment and the benefits of doing so.
This subsection focuses on the use of IoT in small wind turbines that are used for microgeneration (such as collecting real-time data about wind speed and power output) and the benefits of doing so. It also mentions the challenges of wind power generation like high installation cost and ensuring constant wind supply.
This subsection first defines cogeneration or CHPs (combined heat and power), notes the different kinds of CHP generator systems available in the market (along with their functions), and explains how CHPs address the issues of energy consumption and greenhouse emissions by providing users with efficient and localised thermal energy while generating electricity. It then talks about IoT being implemented in cogeneration equipment and the benefits of doing so, like improved efficiency and reduced downtime.
This subsection focuses on the increasing adoption of heat pumps and charts its drivers, including increased policy support. It then explains the difference between two categories of heat pumps: air-source heat pumps and ground-source heat pumps, and charts their distinctive features, suitability, advantages, product costs, installation costs, and government grants. For instance, ground-source heat pumps (GHPs) use 25% to 50% less electricity than conventional heating or cooling systems. It also provides some examples of relevant IoT deployments in this application including Ornate Solar installing smart solar InRoof at an Ashirvad Pipes factory in India.
The key vendors section lists some of the main providers of products and services related to the market, such as Tata Power Solar, Siemens Gamesa, Suzlon Energy, NextEra Energy, SOLshare, GE Vernova, TCS, and Infosys. The report provides profiles of the various vendors including aspects most relevant to this Application Group, such as product offerings, pricing, financial results, and technology.
In the market forecasts section, we provide a summary of the forecasts from the Transforma Insights IoT Forecast Database:
The report charts the growth in the number of devices, which should increase from 25.8 million in 2023 to 143.2 million in 2033.
Transforma Insights forecasts are compiled on a country-by-country basis. This report includes a regional summary, showing splits between Australasia, Greater China, North America, Europe, Japan, Latin America, MENA, Russia & Central Asia, South East Asia, South Korea, India & South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Transforma Insights’ IoT forecasts include splits between the various connectivity technologies as follows: 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G mMTC, 5G non-mMTC, LPWA (non-mMTC), Satellite, Short Range, and Other.
This section discusses which technologies will be used in the generation application group.
This part of the report discusses the market growth in terms of revenue (module revenue, service wrap revenue, and VAC revenue). Transforma Insights estimates that the revenue in the Generation Application Group will grow at a CAGR of 18%.
