Utilities ICT spending up in Australia

IDC has released a new report titled, Australia Utilities Information and Communications Technology Market 2008-2012 Forecast and Analysis that focuses on the utilities sector in Australia, providing a map of where short- and longer-term opportunities can be found and highlights purchasing patterns for products and services by market.

Melissa Martin, Senior Market Analyst, IDC Australia said, "An example of a recent opportunity is part of the Victorian Government-mandated Advanced Metering Infrastructure project. Victorian utilities Jemena and United Energy Distribution have recently named key suppliers in their joint $65 million project to roll out one million smart power meters across Victoria."

"The project involves Accenture for systems integration and applications and Service Stream to install the meters and the two-way wireless communications infrastructure. The new smart meters will provide for remote reading, power failure notifications, remote connections and disconnections and give customers nearly real-time readings of their electricity so they can check energy consumptions and costs. Other state governments will implement similar smart meter projects over time."

The study also found that the top business priorities in the Utilities sector in 2009-2010 will include regulatory compliance, plant engineering, plant maintenance and outage, business intelligence, mobility and smart metering.

IDC forecasts the following for the Utilities sector in Australia:

· Based on IDC's updated forecasts, ICT spending by the Utilities market in Australia will grow from A$1,120 million in 2008 to A$1,308 million in 2012 – achieving a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.0% for the forecast period.

· The Utilities market is a small and conservative spender on ICT and constitutes 2.8% of the total enterprise market in Australia. IT services spending makes up the lion’s share of utility industry spending – at 57%.

· The tight credit markets have already slowed capital spending in this industry and this is likely to continue through 2009. Fossil-fuelled and nuclear generation projects will suffer the worst due to high-risk profiles.