Stepped up efforts by governments and industries to overhaul electric grid infrastructure will yield total spending of 200 billion U.S. dollars worldwide on smart grid technologies from 2008 to 2015, a U.S. clean-tech market research firm said in a report released on Monday.

The firm, Pike Research, also predicted that smart grid revenues will peak in 2013 after several years of strong push by key governments, and will thereafter be a smaller, albeit still very substantial, market.

Smart grid refers to next-generation grid system that delivers electricity from suppliers to consumers using various digital technologies to save energy and cost.

Investment in smart grid technologies has emerged as an energy priority for governments and industries in recent years.

In October, U.S. President Barack Obama announced government grant worth 3.4 billion dollars to help the nation build a smart electric grid, as part of the 787 billion dollars economic stimulus package.

Projects supported by the grant include installing smart electric meters in homes, automating utility substations, and installing thousands of new digital transformers and grid sensors.

"Smart meters are currently the highest-profile component of the smart grid, but they are really just the tip of the iceberg," Pike Research's managing director Clint Wheelock said in a statement.

"Our analysis shows that utilities will find the best return on investment, and therefore will devote the majority of their capital budgets to grid infrastructure projects including transmission upgrades, substation automation, and distribution automation."

According to Pike Research's projections, grid automation initiatives will capture 84 percent of global smart grid investment through 2015, with the remaining 14 percent for advanced metering infrastructure and 2 percent for electric vehicle management systems.

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