Increasing environmental awareness about energy generation using conventional plants is going to make governments to increase development of DEG technology. It is the factor expected to drive the market growth over the forecast period. Distributed energy generation system includes small-scale energy generation units which generate energy at a location near to power end-users. Distributed energy generation cuts the need of building a transmission capacity which reduces the line cost. The implementation of distributed energy generation technology benefits in increased power reliability, reduction in cost of electricity and many other end user application benefits. These benefits are expected to grow the market of distributed energy generation globally. Furthermore, increasing electricity usage with environment friendly attributes is expected to drive the market of distributed energy generation technology in coming years.
Key drivers such as awareness related to energy including greenhouse gas emission, air and water pollution, energy generation cost, other economic & environmental concerns, climate change and increased occurrence of power blackouts are the key factors driving the growth of distributed energy generation market. However, high implementation cost of the technology may restraint the market over the forecast period. Increased adoption of distributed energy offers major opportunities in coming years. DGE is one of the optimum solutions that can be implemented globally to satisfy increasing interest in production of substitute energy source worldwide which is expected to impact the market growth positively.
Combined heat and power (CHP) generates electricity or mechanical power with lower emissions compared with conventional systems. Combined heat and power (CHP) systems produce electricity and useful thermal energy in a single, integrated system. Heat wasted in conventional power production, is recovered as useful energy making CHP more efficient and beneficial for environment, economy and energy system infrastructures. CHP offers profitability to users and it is environment friendly. Fuel cells transform chemical energy in to electricity by chemical process with oxidizing agent. Fuel cells are useful in portable power generation such as laptops, camera among others which is going to drive the market growth.. Distributed solar PV systems offer the advantage of producing electricity onsite, reducing the requirement to build new transmission capacity and avoiding line losses. Solar PV based distribution energy generation is used in applications varying from residential, small commercial to industrial use. Solar PV will continue its steady growth in major markets over the next few years. Turbines are used to produce both heat and electricity in small scale. Turbines offer lightweight, compact size, low emission, small number of moving parts and low operational cost. Due to these characteristics, wind turbines are expected to grow the market for distributed energy generation technology. In automobiles, reciprocating engines transform pressure into rotating motion, which is expected to drive the growth for turbine based DEG system.
Major end users of DEG system are in buildings, residential, institutional, commercial & industrial markets. Industrial and commercial industries dominate the segment due to available resources such as industrial waste and heat energy for reuse. These segments are also expected to increase the market growth over the forecast period.
Major applications of DEG systems are on grid and off grid systems. On grid system is a dependent installation which is connected directly to the onsite area while off grid system is independent installation connected directly to the onsite area which needs battery to store the energy generated from process. Comparing on grid and off grid systems, on grid system is costlier but more effective due to the continuous provision of energy from its stored, generated energy. Hence, depending on its end use, on grid and off grid systems are expected to impact the growth of the market in coming years.
Asia pacific, Middle East, Africa, Europe and Americas are the major regions expected to witness the DEG market growth in near future. Adoption of stringent regulations in Europe is going to expel the market growth in coming years. Asia Pacific is also expected to witness the growth due to the presence of major players in the region and growing demand of energy from increasing population. Cheaper production cost owing to cheaper manpower is one of the reasons for players to invest more in Asia pacific countries in coming years.
First Solar Inc., Ballard Power Systems Inc., FuelCell Energy Inc., General Electric Energy LLC, JA Solar Holdings Co. Ltd., Ingersoll-Rand plc, Sharp Corp., Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd., Siemens AG, Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. Ltd. and UTC Power LLC are the key players in distributive energy generation market marching towards the growth of the market.
Research Support Specialist, USA