Digital Substation Market Revenue Trends and Growth Drivers 2025

Posted by Steve Stark on July 18th, 2023

The digital substation market size is projected to reach USD 9.1 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 7.1% during the forecast period.

A digital substation is a digitized portion of a substation’s secondary system after eliminating the majority of analog secondary circuits between the instrument transformers and protective relays. This is an important aspect of electrical generation, transmission, and distribution systems, which enable electric utilities and other industries to remotely monitor, control, and coordinate the transmission and distribution components installed in the substation.

A digital substation requires digital communication networks and provides improved capabilities for advanced grid control as well as helps in collecting operational and asset data, which can be analyzed to detect and predict failures.

Driver: Improved safety and effective communication in power distribution and transmission processes

The functionality of a digital substation system completely relies on the use of an effective communication system to link various protection, control, and monitoring components within a substation.

Earlier, most manufacturers were using their own proprietary communication protocols; some of the protocols such as Modbus Plus, DNP 3.0, and IEC 60870 were used in utilities, which did not fully support the interoperability among intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) provided by different vendors in the substation automation ecosystem. Therefore, a universal standard, IEC 61850, was introduced pertaining to substation automation to eliminate the problems related to interoperability.

Restraint: High initial set-up costs associated with digital substations

Technological advancements in the transmission infrastructure segment are expected to play a vital role in efficient network upgrade and expansion. This is expected to help in meeting the government’s objective of 24×7 power for all, maintaining a congestion-free transmission network and ensuring grid stability.

Opportunity: Rising demand for renewable energy projects

The renewable energy industry is primed to enter a new phase of growth driven largely by increasing customer demand, cost competitiveness, innovation, and collaboration.

The renewable energy sector saw significant demand in different markets. One of the major factors driving the growth of renewable energy projects is the declining generation cost of renewable energy sources, rising capacity factors of renewable energy sources, and increased competitiveness of battery storage. Moreover, concerns over a carbonconstrained future have also increased the focus of companies on renewable energy projects. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the generation of renewable energy is expected to expand by 50% in the next 5 years.

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Challenge: Concern regarding cyber attacks

Many areas in the electricity network, including the substations, are expanding their existing systems with digital technology.

The rapid pace of change in the electric power grid creates a challenging environment for asset owners and operators of electricity infrastructure to monitor the activities of the industry and standards organizations, develop an understanding of the security impacts of new technologies, and assess and monitor cybersecurity risks.

A digital substation is a highly automated control system where almost all processes of information exchange between substation components, communication with external systems, and control of the substation operation are carried out digitally, which is based on IEC 61850 protocols.