Smart Building Market Overview
Smart building market is expected to grow at a high pace owing to increasing demand for highly efficient infrastructural mechanisms. Many smart building companies provide various services including advantage services, compliance services, electrical services, energy services, fire sprinkler services, integration services, mechanical services, migration services and pre-construction services. These services play a major role in goal specific approaches, testing and inspection of facility systems, preventive maintenance and emergency service, energy efficiency approaches, operations leveraging, mechanical services for heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), and pre-construction settings of smart buildings. On account of surging demand for such a varied portfolio of services, the segment is expected to witness a higher growth during the forecast period in the global smart buildings market.
The building types for global smart building can be segmented into manufacturing facilities, residential buildings, commercial buildings, government and public infrastructure facilities, university, school and hospital buildings and others. Manufacturing facilities include factories, foundries, power plants, wineries, breweries, mills, and water towers. Residential buildings generally include bungalows, apartment blocks, flats, condominiums, dormitories, duplex houses, townhouses and villas.
The constitutes of commercial buildings are convention centers, drugstores, filling stations, forums, hotels, internet cafés, shopping malls, supermarkets, warehouses, restaurants and office buildings. Besides these buildings, there are colleges, schools, libraries, museums, hospitals, nursing homes, asylums, farmhouses, city halls, consulates, courthouses, embassies, fire stations, meeting houses, airport terminals and bus stations. All these buildings can be converted into smart buildings by retrofitting the most advanced building management systems. Out of all these building types, commercial buildings are expected to gather the highest revenue share by 2023.
Europe is expected to witness the largest demand for smart buildings in coming years. Rising government initiatives and support schemes for building smart and energy efficient infrastructure is the key reason behind the high growth rate of the smart building market in the region. The European Union had introduced Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) and Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) in 2010 and 2012 respectively, for making mandatory changes to country level building codes. These laws were primarily made to reduce energy consumptions of buildings, promote the use of smart technologies in buildings, and for streamlining the existing regulations regarding these buildings.
Smart Building Market Dynamics
Contemporary buildings require high safety standards and most advanced safety tools as modern-day thieves and criminals have access to highly developed technological gadgets that are capable of breaching into highly sophisticated safes and valets. Rising concerns for security and the growing need for integrated safety systems in buildings is a key driver of the smart building market. As the number of smart building solution providers has increased substantially and the technologies used for making smart buildings are becoming cheaper, the operational costs for the proper functioning of a smart building project have seen a continual decline in the recent past. This scenario is expected to remain the same throughout the forecast period. This fact has driven the smart building market in the past and the same is expected to keep driving the market in future as well.
The governments of various countries have started realizing the importance of smart building projects for enhancement of their nation. This can be apprehended from the fact that a huge investment has been made recently by the European Union on such projects. Ample energy savings and high profitability have made the smart building market more lucrative for various governments and public organizations.
The high level of connectivity that is offered by the Internet of Things (IoT) can provide integration to enhance functionality that none of the systems and devices could provide individually in past. With building automation, smart building owners have found reductions in energy consumption, enhancement in operations and very attractive returns on investments. There are certain elements that comprise a smart building that include data analytics, software applications, advanced building management tools, system integration, extensive automation and sensors, energy management, enterprise data management, and the leveraging and incorporation of IT.
Due to rapid evolution of IT for buildings, it is expected that in the due course of time, all walls of a building will get embedded with sensors and every aspect of a building’s performance will be metered and measured. The wireless infrastructure of a building is estimated to play an important role in shaping the connectivity of all devices in a smart building.
The high initial investments required for constructing a smart building is the major factor restraining the growth of smart building market. However, by replacing the traditional energy transfer tools that provide AC power with Power over Ethernet (PoE), the cost factor can be improved. The installation of a PoE network port is cheaper than that of a conduit, wire, or a backbox for an AC outlet. For instance, few years ago, around $350 to $1,000 was the estimated amount saved per device by Purdue university, as it installed over a 1,100 PoE wireless access points instead of traditional AC outlets, across its campus.
Smart Building Market Competitive Landscape
Some of the major players operating in the smart building market include IBM, ABB Group, Cisco Systems Inc., Siemens AG, Schneider Electric, Honeywell International Inc., Delta Controls, Johnson Controls, BuildingIQ, United Technologies Corporation, and Legrand. The smart building market is highly fragmented, the number of players is large and the high demand for smart urbanized buildings is intensifying the competition among players.
