BOULDER, Colo. — After years of sputtering growth, the home energy management (HEM) market has begun to gather momentum, notes Navigant Research. Product vendors, utilities, service providers, retailers, and other stakeholders report increasing activity, and there are signs of growing awareness among consumers that new tools are available to help them better manage and control their home energy consumption. According to a new report from the research firm, global revenue from HEM products and services is expected to grow from $846 million annually in 2013 to more than $3 billion in 2020.

“The HEM market got a jolt when Google purchased Nest Labs for $3.2 billion in January 2014, signaling to the market that a major technology company saw value in home energy and automation,” said Neil Strother, principal research analyst with Navigant Research. “This sector is poised for significant growth in 2015, as vendors release new products and large retailers offer new, customer-friendly packages and products.”

Other active HEM vendors include Honeywell, which in June 2014 announced its Lyric smart thermostat, featuring a geofencing capability that uses a homeowner’s smartphone location to adjust settings. Thermostat maker Carrier and Ceiva Energy formed a partnership to jointly offer a solution to utilities that enables them to deploy demand response (DR) and energy efficiency programs. Opower also released the latest version of its customer engagement platform in 2014, which extends its analytics capability and provides an open ecosystem for utility customers.

An executive summary of the report is available here.

Publication date: 12/15/2014

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