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Newton-Evans Research Company’s U.S. Market Overview Series Continues with Nine New Protection and Control Summaries

In the new 2022-2024 Protective Relay series, the authors have assessed the market estimates made by Newton-Evans in other recent reports, both multi-client and commissioned.  In this series we have made specific range estimates for four of the most widely used protective relays, including motor control relays, distribution feeder relays, line differential relays and generator relays.  We have grouped a number of substation relays together as one entity covering relays for busbar, transformers, capacitor bank, switchgear, breaker failure, and other types of transmission line protection relays.

In the recent mid-2022 series of market overviews covering substation automation topics, we estimated the total of digital protective relays shipped to U.S. utility and C&I customers in 2021 to have a value of more than $800 million. When the groupings reported here are summed, the total values of 2021 product shipments concur with the totals for digital relays as reported in the earlier substation automation series. The vast majority of protective relays used by utilities are digital, while solid state units are more frequently used in telecom and motor-related applications and in one-for-one replacement of some electro-mechanical relays.

In addition to digital protective relays, closely related report topics are evaluated in this new series.  Included are individual report summaries on electro-mechanical relays, synchrophasors, drop-in substation control houses, and teleprotection equipment.  In total, Newton-Evans estimates the value of 2021 factory shipments of products covered in this series totals more than $1.1 billion.

Commercial and industrial customers account for about one-third of our total estimate of spending across the nine topics covered in the series.  This significant percentage is primarily due to the large volume of motor protective relays shipments, with the majority of these shipments made to C&I customers rather than to electric utilities.  As more and more distributed energy resources come online with ownership primarily by non-utility entities, there will be more purchase of protection-related products, equipment and services made by C&I customers.  During the 2022-2030 years, Newton-Evans anticipates significantly higher levels of C&I procurements necessitated by the construction of non-utility owned substations, requiring outlays for a variety of protective relays, drop-in control houses and teleprotection equipment.  Interested readers can view the product offering here: https://www.newton-evans.com/product/overview-of-the-2022-2024-u-s-transmission-and-distribution-equipment-market-protective-relay-series/.   See the following chart containing two overviews of our findings.