Smart Solar Market - Global Industry Size, Share, Trends, Opportunity, and Forecast, 2021-2031

The Global Smart Solar Market is projected to expand significantly, rising from a valuation of USD 32.25 billion in 2025 to USD 81.81 billion by 2031, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 16.78%. This sector encompasses photovoltaic infrastructure combined with digital technologies, including smart inverters and monitoring software, designed to maximize energy harvesting and optimize distribution. The market's trajectory is fundamentally supported by the urgent need to modernize grids for decentralized energy resources and the demand for enhanced operational efficiency through real-time data analytics. These underlying factors ensure sustained long-term growth by resolving the technical challenges associated with managing variable renewable energy sources, distinguishing the industry's progress from temporary technological trends.

According to SolarPower Europe, the global solar sector achieved a record installation of 597 gigawatts of capacity in 2024, marking a 33% increase over the previous year. This rapid deployment emphasizes the critical requirement for intelligent systems that can regulate grid stability and facilitate bidirectional energy flow. However, despite this positive momentum, the market encounters substantial obstacles related to cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The digitization of essential energy assets has introduced concerns regarding system integrity, which creates potential delays in widespread adoption as stakeholders navigate the risks associated with connecting critical infrastructure to digital networks.

Market Drivers

Beneficial government regulations and renewable energy mandates act as the primary engines for industry growth, with policies like feed-in tariffs, tax credits, and net metering schemes offering the financial security needed for major infrastructure projects. These legislative structures lower the capital risks tied to adopting smart solar technologies, prompting utility providers to modernize legacy systems for increased renewable integration. According to the International Energy Agency's 'World Energy Investment 2024' report from June 2024, global investment in solar PV is expected to surpass USD 500 billion in 2024, exceeding the combined investment in all other generation technologies. This regulatory-driven influx of capital directly supports the deployment of advanced metering infrastructure and the digital management tools essential for a contemporary energy network.

Furthermore, the market is being transformed by the incorporation of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT) to optimize system performance and grid responsiveness. The use of smart inverters and IoT-capable sensors enables the real-time data exchange necessary to handle the variability of photovoltaic power, facilitating predictive maintenance and automated load balancing for greater reliability. Enphase Energy's 'Q2 2024 Financial Results' from July 2024 noted the shipment of over 1.4 million microinverters, illustrating the vast scale of intelligent component integration. This digital evolution is bolstered by the concurrent rise of storage capabilities; the International Energy Agency reported in April 2024 that battery deployment in the power sector surged by over 130% in 2023, offering the capacity firming needed to fully establish smart solar ecosystems.

Market Challenges

The increasing digitization of the Global Smart Solar Market presents a major obstacle in the form of cybersecurity vulnerabilities, which directly hinder the sector's expansion. As photovoltaic infrastructure becomes more dependent on internet-connected smart inverters and remote monitoring software, the grid becomes increasingly exposed to cyber threats. This susceptibility creates a significant barrier to adoption, as the possibility of remote manipulation of decentralized energy resources triggers alarms regarding national security and operational continuity. In response, regulators and utility companies are implementing more stringent interconnection protocols, which inevitably delay deployment timelines and increase project costs.

The gravity of this threat limits rapid market scalability by requiring rigorous and expensive risk mitigation measures before projects can become operational. Data from SolarPower Europe in 2025 indicates that over a dozen solar manufacturers each controlled more than 3 gigawatts of installed capacity, creating concentrated points of failure where a single targeted breach could disrupt the wider electrical grid. This high density of digital control highlights the fragility of the existing ecosystem, causing investors to pause and slowing the mainstream integration of smart solar technologies into the energy mix.

Market Trends

The rise of Virtual Power Plants (VPP) is reshaping the market by monetizing distributed energy assets through aggregation rather than traditional consumption models. Unlike isolated residential systems, VPPs connect thousands of decentralized solar-plus-storage installations to deliver utility-scale grid services, such as frequency regulation and peak shaving, effectively transforming prosumers into active market contributors. This aggregation strategy mitigates the intermittency of renewable sources by establishing dispatchable energy pools that stabilize the grid without the need for additional centralized power plants. For instance, Sunrun reported in its 'Q3 2024 Financial Results' from November 2024 that it installed 336 megawatt-hours of storage capacity, a 92% year-over-year increase, directly expanding the reserves required for effective virtual power plant operations.

Simultaneously, the transition toward decentralized energy grid architectures is driving a comprehensive overhaul of both physical and digital transmission infrastructure to accommodate bidirectional power flows. This trend extends beyond mere component optimization, focusing on a structural transformation of the grid to support diverse non-utility generation sources like microgrids and community solar initiatives. Such architectural evolution is essential for managing the complex voltage dynamics created by high levels of renewable penetration, necessitating significant investment in advanced grid technologies. Highlighting this demand, Siemens Energy announced in its 'Earnings Release Q4 FY 2024' in November 2024 that its Grid Technologies segment saw comparable revenue growth of 32.2% for the fiscal year, reflecting the urgent need for infrastructure capable of integrating decentralized renewable energy.

Key Players Profiled in the Smart Solar Market

• ABB Limited
• Schneider Electric SE
• Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
• Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd.
• Enphase Energy, Inc.
• SolarEdge Technologies, Inc.
• GoodWe Technologies Co., Ltd.
• Canadian Solar Inc.
• JA Solar Technology Co., Ltd.
• Trina Solar Co. Ltd.

Report Scope

In this report, the Global Smart Solar Market has been segmented into the following categories:

Smart Solar Market, by Type:

• Asset Management
• Network Monitoring
• Meter Data Management (MDM)
• Analytics
• Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)
• Remote Metering
• Other

Smart Solar Market, by Application:

• Commercial & Industrial (C&I)
• Residential
• Utility Scale

Smart Solar Market, by Region:

• North America
• Europe
• Asia-Pacific
• South America
• Middle East & Africa

Competitive Landscape

Company Profiles: Detailed analysis of the major companies present in the Global Smart Solar Market.

Available Customization

The analyst offers customization according to your specific needs. The following customization options are available for the report:

• Detailed analysis and profiling of additional market players (up to five).

This product will be delivered within 1-3 business days.