Smart buildings market set to grow after past slowdown

Smart building

Smart building technology market is expected to grow rapidly now after slower-than-expected growth over the past several years.

Broader market awareness of the benefits of deploying smart building solutions would drive the growth, according to IDC Energy Insights.

Building owners and key decision makers are increasingly aware of the business value of convergence of IT and building automation to enable optimization of facility, IDC says.

According to the insights, more than 90 per cent of firms will increase investment in smart building technologies once the methodology for valuing these becomes accepted and standardized more widely.

IDC says the adoption of smart buildings represents a small share of the total addressable market despite the aggressive growth of the smart buildings market (a global CAGR of 22.6 per cent).

But in the longer run the market would expand based on the continued development of case studies and best practices by early adopters.

In 2015 and beyond, adoption is anticipated to recover as the economic recovery takes hold and as energy costs remain a large and variable component of building operation.

“The adoption of smart building solutions in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific is particularly positive due to a combination of policy and business dynamics, which help drive market awareness of the business value of these solutions and as a result the market demand,” IDC says.

IDC’s forecast is based on several trends, the first of which is that vertical industries have had a large impact on the rate of adoption of smart building technologies.

Second, investments are expanding from heating, ventillation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems to lighting, plug load, equipment maintenance, and such issues.

“While the ‘Internet of Things’ is a topic of much speculation in the consumer market, smart building technology has steadily been increasing its footprint and impact among commercial buildings. Smart building solutions are valuable technologies for deploying energy management strategies that generate operational efficiencies, cost containment, and sustainability benefits that appeal to key stakeholders in building management,” Jill Feblowitz, the vice president of IDC Energy Insights said.

Ajith Kumar S

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