What's driving the US building energy management system market?

Posted On: September 12, 2018

Building energy management systems, which monitor and automate energy usage across commercial and residential buildings, are expected to see rising demands in the U.S. amid various factors, chief among them rising electricity costs.

That was a conclusion reached by a recent report from 6Wresearch, titled "The United States Building Energy Management Systems Market (2018-2024)," which forecasts that market revenues are projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12.2 percent during the forecast period.

Rising electricity prices are one factor that is expected to trigger the growth in the building energy management system in the U.S. According to data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), retail prices of electricity are expected to experience an across-the-board rise across different sectors from 2018 to 2019. Specifically, prices are expected to increase from 12.97 US cents per kilowatt-hour this year to 13.33 in 2019 in the residential sector; from 10.72 to 10.80 in the commercial sector, and from 7 to 7.07 in the industrial sector, EIA data shows.

Meanwhile, the 6Wresearch report further cited that electricity tariffs in the United States for residential, commercial, and industrial segments are expected to rise by 8 percent, 6 percent, and 7 percent, respectively from 2016 to 2019. This, combined with the US government's support for deployment of energy-efficient devices and equipment through several incentives such as the Federal Energy Management Program and Corporate Energy Management, is expected to drive the demand for building energy management systems in the U.S. over the coming years, the report said.

Space heating and cooling As for households, the report cited the Residential Energy Consumption Survey as saying American households consume more electricity during winters, and as such space, heating and cooling are the biggest energy-consuming segments in the residential application.

"Space heating followed by lighting application dominated the market of building energy management systems. According to EIA, energy consumption for space heating in the commercial sector registered an increase of 100 percent in 2017 as compared to the energy requirement in 2016 and is expected to rise over the next six years," said Ravi Bhandari, Research Manager at 6Wresearch.

He further added that the software segment captured the majority of the revenue share in the US building energy management system market, followed by services. "Several features such as budgets and variance reports, utility bill tracking, real-time metering, and collection of energy data usage by various equipment have enhanced their adoption in the market. However, declining cost of hardware devices such as sensors and computer peripherals would impact the revenue share of the segment over the coming years," Bhandari said.

According to Akash Jain, Research Analyst at 6Wresearch further commented from a hardware perspective. "Hardware components such as sensors, actuators, and controllers form the framework of the building energy management system. These hardware components allow remote monitoring, data processing, and integration of a multi-protocol communication interface in the system. According to EIA, around 1,410 billion kWh electricity was consumed by the residents of the United States, which is expected to touch 1,600 billion KWh by 2040 on account of increasing market penetration of electrical devices that are not covered under efficiency standards and thus would boost the demand for building energy management system in the country," he said. "The infusion of Internet of Things in building energy management systems and combining it with multiple features in building equipment such as lighting, security, and heating would be a new trend over the coming years."

The report estimates and forecasts the overall US building energy management systems market by components and services, hardware, price end user, applications, and regions. The report cited some of the key players in the United States building energy management systems market, including Honeywell, Johnson Controls International, Siemens, Schneider Electric, and Ecova.

Media Source: Asmag

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