The evolution of building energy software has followed that of software and computing in other industries in that it has migrated from the local end-users' PCs to cloud-based platforms where software hosted on centralized servers is remotely accessed through the Internet. Cloud-based building energy interfaces can promote energy-saving behaviors in several ways. Simply providing energy usage information, where usage occurs and/or where it is higher than benchmarks or historical usage, serves as an immediate visual trigger for users to become 'aware' contributors in helping to promote energy-efficiency. In terms of integration of diverse data sets from multiple sources, almost all BEMS have some kind of interface to the Internet or support a communications standard that allows data to be transferred and shared among systems and a variety of information sources. For example, some BEMS can get an up-to-date weather feed, as well as interface with the local utility's metering infrastructure.
