At a glance
- Client: A climate-tech startup that detects emissions from space
- Sector: Climate tech / energy-sector emissions monitoring
- Region: Global and United States
- Service: Market sizing
The challenge
A startup that detects and quantifies greenhouse gas emissions from satellite imagery needed to know the size of its market, globally and in the US, for GHG and methane monitoring, excluding agriculture and landfill methane. It also needed to understand who its customers are across energy, finance and regulation, how three established satellite-monitoring competitors operate, and where it should focus.
What we did
- Reviewed the wider context: compliance and voluntary carbon markets and the role of measurement, reporting and verification.
- Collected published market size and growth forecasts for emissions monitoring systems, globally and for the US.
- Built bottom-up sizing in a workbook from asset counts (oil rigs, refinery units, oil and gas pipeline length), financial-sector firms backing oil and gas, and unit costs for monitoring systems, pipeline monitoring and subscriptions.
- Built a separate top-down estimate from company counts and spend per company, and applied survey-based assumptions on how many organisations need and intend to improve emissions monitoring.
- Reviewed market trends and upcoming regulation, including US pipeline safety rules, proposed SEC climate disclosure, the EU CSRD and ESRS, and the Paris Agreement.
- Profiled three target customer groups (energy, financial institutions, regulators and governments) and gathered four case studies of emissions monitoring in practice.
- Analysed three main satellite-monitoring competitors in depth: offer, unique selling points, target segments, key markets and marketing.
- Ran a gap analysis of the client's offer against market demand and set out recommendations.
What we delivered
A market research report of about 32 pages and a three-sheet sizing workbook with every assumption sourced.
Market research report
Word report · about 32 pages
- Executive summary and scope
- The market: market size and market trends
- Customers: target customers and profiles by sector
- Four case studies
- Competitor overview and in-depth analysis of three competitors
- Analysis and gap analysis
- Recommendations
- References
Market sizing workbook
Spreadsheet · 3 sheets
- Bottom-up sizing from oil rigs, refinery units, pipeline length and financial-sector firms
- Unit cost and subscription assumptions with sources
- Top-down sizing from company counts and spend per company
- Survey-based TAM to SAM to SOM assumptions
- Published global and US emissions monitoring market forecasts to 2030
What we found
- The market for emissions monitoring is growing, driven by tighter emissions regulation in North America and Europe and continued reliance on coal power, while lack of awareness of the benefits holds it back.
- Because many potential customers still do not see why emissions monitoring matters, the client should use its marketing to educate the market and stress what satellite imagery shows about the source and spread of emissions.
- Measurement accuracy is the key selling point for satellite monitoring, so the client should keep improving the algorithm that interprets its imagery.
- The energy sector should be the priority customer group, as it needs constant monitoring both for compliance and to prevent incidents from gas leaks.
- The gap analysis found three unmet demands: monitoring low-emission zones in cities, continuous monitoring of urban and industrial development, and accurate measurement for compliance reports.
In numbers
- The global GHG emissions monitoring systems market was valued at US$3.31 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach US$6.96 billion by 2030, a CAGR of 9.74% (Grand View Research).
- The US emission monitoring systems market was worth US$969.4 million in 2021, with a forecast CAGR of 7.9% to 2030.
- 1,763 oil rigs were operating worldwide in 2022, 621 of them in the US, and there were 825 refinery units globally, 129 in the US.
- Regional spending on advanced methane monitoring in oil and gas is forecast to reach US$917 million by 2025, led by North America.
- 30 compliance carbon markets operate worldwide.