Local Flexibility Markets Are Expected to Account for More than $10 Billion in Global Revenue by 2029

Flexibility markets allow grid operators to address infrastructure needs at lower costs with greater customer and environmental benefits

Aug 25, 2020

A new report from Guidehouse Insights examines local flexibility markets and the enabling technologies in five major geographic regions, presenting a 10-year forecast and market sizing from 2020 through 2029.

Traditionally, a transmission or distribution system operator (DSO) faced with aging equipment or increased load demand would simply replace conduct poles and wires. Today, distribution grid operators in deregulated markets are increasingly opting to deploy flexibility markets—commercial markets operating at specific points of the grid that manage access to a segment of the grid—to provide services such as real-time congestion management, peak demand reduction, outage management, and long-term capacity planning. Click to tweet: According to a new report from @WeAreGHInsights, local flexibility markets are expected to account for roughly $167.7 million of global transaction revenue in 2020 from 1,537.1 MW of participating capacity. The forecast shows relatively robust growth by 2029 at a total of $10.0 billion in global revenue from 79.5 GW of participating capacity.

“Local flexibility markets are ready to become a bigger piece of distribution grid management based on the growth of distributed energy resources (DER) technology and operators’ and regulators’ willingness to try new means of infrastructure replacement that can reduce the cost of the overall system,” says Roberto Rodriguez Labastida, senior research analyst with Guidehouse Insights. “These markets are exploring creative solutions to address infrastructure needs at a lower cost with greater customer and environmental benefits.”

To date, the adoption of local flexibility markets has been focused in Europe, especially in the UK and the Netherlands, according to the report. In the US, New York leads the deployment of local flexibility markets. Elsewhere, markets are fairly nascent, with small pilot trials in Japan.

The report, Flexibility Markets and Enabling Technologies, examines local flexibility markets and the enabling technologies in five major geographic regions, presenting a 10-year forecast and market sizing from 2020 through 2029. The regions covered include North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa. Guidehouse Insights provides market sizing and forecasts with respect to spending on or investments in flexibility market transaction activity and platforms. Additionally, Guidehouse Insights explores the flexibility market deployment trends to highlight varying regional activity and designs. An executive summary of the report is available for free download on the Guidehouse Insights website.

Contact:

Lindsay Funicello-Paul

+1.781.270.8456

lindsay.funicello.paul@guidehouse.com

*The information contained in this press release concerning the report, Flexibility Markets and Enabling Technologies, is a summary and reflects the current expectations of Guidehouse Insights based on market data and trend analysis. Market predictions and expectations are inherently uncertain and actual results may differ materially from those contained in this press release or the report. Please refer to the full report for a complete understanding of the assumptions underlying the report’s conclusions and the methodologies used to create the report. Neither Guidehouse Insights nor Guidehouse undertakes any obligation to update any of the information contained in this press release or the report.