NEW YORK — After years of steady but slow growth, the commercial building automation systems (BAS) market is experiencing a rapid period of change and investment, according to ABI Research. Traditionally, growth and adoption has been closely tied to new building completion but new entrants and new connectivity are driving greater investment. Over the next five years, ABI Research forecasts that the building automation services market will grow to $43 billion, up from $35 billion this year.

Two key factors are driving a new round of growth. Greater environmental and financial demands have raised the appeal of reducing energy consumption in commercial buildings and the benefits for optimizing building automation systems. In addition, a new level of connectivity that stretches the reach of BAS’s from new sensors and actuators through to cloud application management and data analysis.

“This is a market long dominated by a handful of major players who deploy and manage commercial building management systems,” said Jonathan Collins, principal analyst at ABI Research. “Now these players are developing new ways to integrate and compete with a host of new service offerings.”