Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7492-2778
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1893-0797
Abstract
Building Automation Systems (BAS) play a critical role in improving energy efficiency in commercial buildings, yet their long-term carbon mitigation potential has not been comprehensively quantified at a global scale. As the dominant open communication standard enabling interoperability in modern BAS, BACnet has played a central role in expanding automation adoption worldwide. This study develops a cohort-based modeling framework to estimate historical (1995–2025) and projected (2026–2030) CO₂e mitigation from BACnet-based BAS adoption across four regions: the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Rest of World (ROW). The model combines regional commercial floor area, baseline electricity and natural-gas energy intensity, BAS adoption rates, electricity carbon-intensity trajectories, and system performance decay to produce annual and cumulative mitigation estimates. Results show that BAS have avoided approximately 1,401 million tonnes of CO₂e globally from 1995–2025 and are projected to reach 2,065 million tonnes by 2030. The carbon reduction achieved so far is roughly equal to the annual emission of the entire Japan – the world’s fifth largest emitter, or removing 300 million cars from the road for an entire year. Annual mitigation increases over time due to the accumulation of overlapping BAS cohorts but slows after the mid-2010s as adoption growth levels off and electricity grids decarbonize. Significant regional differences emerge: electricity dominates mitigation in the United States (~70%), while natural gas plays an equally important or larger role in Europe and Canada due to colder climates and gas-intensive heating loads. Cohort-level analysis shows clear performance decay and reduced post-replacement peaks, driven by declining electricity carbon intensity. These findings demonstrate that BAS deliver robust and persistent energy savings, but the carbon value of those savings depends increasingly on regional grid decarbonization pathways. The results highlight the continued importance of BAS, supported by BACnet interoperability, as a near-term mitigation strategy and underscore the need for sustained maintenance and broader deployment in under-automated building segments.
Department
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Publication Date
12-19-2025
Subject
Global carbon mitigation
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Han, Fei and Mo, Weiwei, "Global Carbon Mitigation from BACnet Adoption in Commercial Building Automation Systems 1995-2030" (2025). Faculty Publications. 2433.
https://scholars.unh.edu/faculty_pubs/2433