This month’s Smart Grid Index (SGI) results show that overall Smart Grid sentiment decreased slightly in December. However, sentiment among utilities increased by seven percentage points. Almost half of the vendors surveyed closed a new deal last month, while 73% of utilities expect to submit new Smart Grid proposals for budget approval over the next 12 months. Over the next 12 months, utilities indicated that their top four areas of investment will be in distribution automation (25%), AMI (21%), advanced transmission systems (17%), and customer systems (17%). Last, 51% of respondents believed that the re-election of U.S. President Barack Obama will have a positive impact on the future potential of the Smart Grid.

This study was conducted by Zpryme and FierceSmartGrid by surveying 276 Smart Grid executives from December 3rd to December 13th of 2012. The survey was conducted online. Please note that percentages may not add up to 100 due to rounding. Three groups were used to inspect for differences: vendors (61% of sample), utilities (14% of sample), and total sample. The data are presented in figures 1 through 10 in this report.

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