During this year’s AHR Expo, BACnet International was excited to celebrate BACnet’s 30th Anniversary as an ASHRAE Standard. This year’s show drew almost 54,000 attendees from the H-VACR and building automation industry to the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, NV. This year’s show featured a record-breaking 1,039 BTL Listed products from over 120 companies.
The BACnet International booth, located in the AHR Expo’s Building Automation Pavilion. The event was well attended by volunteers, members of the BACnet Community, and visitors interested in the BACnet Standard, membership, free BACnet education from The BACnet Institute (TBI), and the benefits of BACnet Testing Laboratories (BTL) testing and certification programs.
Before the show’s opening, BACnet International held its annual leadership dinner and awards reception. Multiple individuals and associations were honored for their commitment to advancing the BACnet Standard worldwide. BACnet International presented the following awards:
- BACnet Testing Laboratories Working Group Volunteer of the Year Award – Courtney Adams, PassiveLogic
- BACnet International Marketing Committee Volunteer of the Year – Ken Gilbert, Automated Logic
- BACnet International Hall of Fame Award – Jim Lee, Cimetrics
- Lifetime Achievement Award – Karl Heinz Belser
- Lifetime Achievement Award – Jim Butler
- The Atlas Award – Joel Bender
- Recognition of Service as BTL Technical Advisor – Michael Osborne
- The Clipper Award – Emily Hayes, BTL Manager
- BACnet Impact Award – Fei Han and Weiwei Mo, University of New Hampshire
BACnet International was honored to be the inaugural recipient of the Catalyst Award from the INBAC Association. The award was given to BACnet International to signify its continued commitment and support of the INBAC Association and their joint commitment to serving as dual pillars supporting open standards and protocols worldwide. INBAC Founder and President Sakhee Chandrayan presented the award to Michael R Wilson, Chair of the BACnet International Board of Directors.
Andy McMillan, President and Managing Director of BACnet International, presented the Foundation Award to representatives from ASHRAE, honoring their long‑standing support of BACnet from its first publication in 1995 through its growth into the most widely specified protocol worldwide, with 77% of projects specifying BACnet. The award was accepted by Stephanie Reiniche, Director of Technology for ASHRAE.
To celebrate BACnet’s 30th Anniversary as an ASHRAE Standard, BACnet International President and Managing Director Andy McMillan presented attendees with commemorative challenge coins and thanked attendees for their support in advancing BACnet adoption.
BACnet International hosted four educational sessions during the AHR Expo. The sessions included:
- BACnet 101: An Introduction to BACnet: presented by Edward Tom, Product Manager, Drives, Yaskawa America, Inc.
- BACnet: Past, Present & Future on its 30th Anniversary: moderated by Andy McMillan, BACnet International President and Managing Director. Panel experts: Steven Bushby, Coleman Brumley, James Lee, Sakhee Chandrayan, Nate Benes, Karl Heinz Belser, Fei Han, Dave Robin, Scott Ziegenfus, Hans Symanczik, Alexandra Henczka, Emily Hayes, and David Nardone
- See the Light: Integrating DALI and BACnet: moderated by Andy McMillan, BACnet International President and Managing Director. Panel experts: Stuart Berjansky, Technical Director, DesignLights Consortium (DLC), Luke Baar, Support and Application Engineer, LOYTEC, Michael Davidson, Research Engineer, Synapse Wireless
- BACnet in Mission-Critical Applications: presented by Ken Gilbert, Americas Solutions Consultant, Managing Director, Automated Logic Corporation
BACnet International also announced groundbreaking research at the show, which quantifies the 30-year climate impact of the BACnet Standard. The published study from the University of New Hampshire revealed that since BACnet’s release in 1995, the adoption of smart building technologies in BACnet systems has avoided approximately 1,401 million tons (1.4 Gt) of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) globally.
In addition, BACnet International announced that the BACCARI Beta 3 executable was now available for public download! BACCARI – BACnet Certificate Authority Reference Implementation Tool, can create a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) if a product cannot create its own. It can validate a product’s CSR file and package the CSRs into a CARI file for a certificate authority. It can act as the certificate authority for a BACnet/SC network. A BACnet/SC site might use some or all of these functionalities. The tool was released in 2025 and the operating code has been made public (at no charge) in Q1 2026 to promote interoperable certificate signing and exchange.
BACnet International looks forward to next year’s AHR Expo, January 25th – 27th in Chicago.