Powerline communication market to hit $7.1B by 2018

The global market for powerline communication (PLC) systems is expected to grow from US$2.94 billion in 2013 to US$7.1 billion in 2018 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.3 percent.

According to a study by MarketsandMarkets released Tuesday, the emergence of modern networking technologies including broadband is pushing utility and service providers to find ways to deliver connectivity "at minimum cost and maximum performance".

For many years, PLC had been built to communicate low bandwidth analog and digital information over residential, commercial, and high voltage power line, the research firm pointed out.

With the advent of smart grid and need for substation automation, the potential of powerlines as a powerful medium to deliver full duplex high speed data and multimedia content is being explored now, it added.

PLC is being used in a host of emerging and existing applications, including smart grid, home automation, vehicle automation, broadband over powerline, machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and etc.

MarketsandMarkets noted in terms of geographic areas, Europe leads the pack due to its early acceptance of the PLC technology, while the United States was the biggest market in the Americas with major revenue from B-PLC applications like in-home networking and control.

The Asia-Pacific region is an emerging market for PLC, with China and Japan the fastest growing regions in APAC, each with an expected CAGR of 23 percent from 2013 to 2018.