With 400 million smart meters planned worldwide, integration with a customer’s “Home Area Network” (HAN) has become a major developer and startup opportunity. ON World recently conducted phone interviews with 109 utilities and found that two-thirds are planning in-home energy management solutions. Within the next five years, 78 percent of electric meters shipped in North America will have a HAN gateway. „“Smart metering projects and their needed solutions are driving new innovations for energy management and the Smart Home,” says Mareca Hatler, ON World’s research director. “Smart Grid initiatives are paving the way for the Internet of Things through open standards, cloud services, and Internet Protocol (IP) addressability at every endpoint.““ A few of ON World’s research findings include the following: • 13 million electric AMI meters were shipped last year in North America. • By 2014, Europe will surpass North America and Asia will be the fastest growing AMI market. • 24 percent of the surveyed utilities indicate that they are likely to use a public network for AMI within the next five years. • Most in-progress AMI standards will use an IP stack such as ZigBee Smart Energy 2.0, IEEE802.15.4g, and IEEE1901.2. • By 2020, 150 million electric AMI meters are planned to have a HAN gateway. www.onworld.com