In the last two months, first quarter figures for 2010 and 2009 year end from the smart grid manufacturers have been released and they show some interesting trends. Itron has delivered a strong 2009 performance increasing its revenues by 29% on 2008, whilst Echelon a serious competitor in the metering business has suffered a significant decline. Similarly on the communications side, Ambient revenues in 2009 fell but Atheros increased revenues by 19%. All of these companies are well established and although performance could be attributed to good or poor stewardship during the last year it is more likely in the US to have been caused by the delay of the Smart Grid stimulus programme getting off the ground. We have this month listed some 10 stimulus projects commissioned in the last two months receiving grants of just over $1 billion, so the stimulus programme has now been firmly kicked into play. Without this programme the […]