Silicon Valley well positioned to be a leader in smart grid related technology

Silicon Valley and the broader Bay Area are well-positioned to be national leaders in the development and deployment of smart grid technologies as utilities, local governments and the private sector work to improve the electric grid, a new report by Collaborative Economics of San Mateo (CA) concludes.

In 2009, the latest year for which data is available, there were 12,560 smart grid jobs in the Bay Area, defined as Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. That's up from 5,480 smart grid jobs in 1995, a jump of 129 percent. Businesses in the Bay Area providing smart grid-related products and services grew 139 percent between 1995 and 2009, expanding from 280 to 670. Many of the companies are small: the report found that in 2009, 69 percent of smart grid companies had 10 or fewer employees.