Market opportunities and barriers for smart buildings

Abstract

Buildings consume up to 42% of the global electricity and the primary emitter of greenhouse gas on the planet. Building efficiency is the largest growing segment in the US, the estimated global revenue by the building efficiency sector is around 210 million dollars, and constantly increases since 2011. Much research already shows the players' passive and conservative attitudes to enter into the energy efficiency market. Especially there are obstacles for the construction companies to redesign their business model from the traditional building business to the smart building market. This paper conducts a qualitative approach with primary and secondary data to investigate the Barriers and opportunities of the construction companies into the smart building market. The result shows the willingness of the players to involve the building efficiency business with huge potential monetary benefits. Meanwhile, the result shows that the barriers can be eased or solved by open collaboration, information and risk sharing, and self-investment, etc. this paper also categorizes nine influential factors with discussions.