They're being spurred on by the U.S. Department of Energy's smart grid stimulus programs, and the need to secure smart grid deployments that are becoming more and more technology-reliant and vulnerable to infiltration and compromise.
The Smart Grid Cyber Security Report, conducted courtesy of Pike Research, a market research and consulting firm focused on clean technology markets, utilities, vendors and world governments are becoming more focused on grid security, which will grow revenue in that sector from $1.2 billion in 2009 to $3.7 billion by 2015. This and other information from the report was made available in a Feb. 14, 2010, company press release and the report's free executive summary. More in-depth data from the report is available by subscription.
Utility players don't want to fail in the security game, and the utility technologists want to develop robust smart grid cyber-security technology sooner rather than later, according to Clint Wheelock, Pike's managing director, in the press release. Department of Energy stimulus programs are helping to provide the activation energy for the utilities' cyber-security boom, but they're getting help from standards developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and priorities established by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The report broke down the cyber-security market into five smart grid application areas - transmission upgrades, substation automation, distribution automation, electric vehicle management systems and advanced metering infrastructure. The most money will be spent in securing the distribution automation, transmission upgrades and advanced metering infrastructure areas.