The Not-So-Secret Weapon for Swedish Energy Efficiency? LoRaWAN.
- By CDOTrends editors
- June 25, 2024
Sweden is the latest jurisdiction to implement LoRaWan technology to improve energy efficiency through smart metering.
Swedish property company Stena Fastigheter has partnered with LoRaWan Internet of Things (IoT) network operator Netmore Group to implement LoRaWan technology across its property portfolio.
Netmore’s LoRaWan connectivity will be added to 27,000 apartments across Stockholm, Malmö, and Gothenburg.
To support Stena’s rollout of submetering (IMD) and temperature/humidity sensors, a large number of LoRaWan gateways and approximately 42,900 meters of sensors will be installed.
A vital aspect of the partnership is using technology for energy optimization. Primary applications include submetering enabled by the deployment of water meters and temperature and humidity sensors, which are expected to contribute to more efficient energy management in Stena’s properties.
“We are now entering a phase where LoRaWan becomes the natural choice of access technology for property owners,” said Eric Collinder, country manager of Nordics at Netmore Group.
While energy optimization is the first stage in the partnership, the organizations expect to collaborate on other initiatives in the future, such as water leak detection, waste management, smoke and radon detection and more.
“By equipping our properties with meters and sensors, we can constantly align with the consumption patterns of the buildings and the needs of our tenants while ensuring that any excess consumption is minimized,” said Peter Mikulic, head of digital transformation at Stena Fastigheter.
There is some global impetus for similar smart city projects, with industry associations such as the LoRa Alliance pushing for the LoRaWan open standard for IoT low-power wide-area networks to drive 5.0 applications and deployments.
The LoRa Alliance claims its ecosystem delivers end-to-end solutions across the value chain, which enables the “holistic” digital transformation needed to achieve Industry 5.0’s objectives.
In other deployments, Yorkshire Water has selected IoT and smart technology provider Connexin to deliver an advanced meter infrastructure (AMI) framework contract to help drive down leakage and cut per capita (PCC) consumption.
The Yorkshire-based utility has made the award as part of a strategic commitment to roll out a smart water network, which will deliver near real-time data from across the water network for more accurate billing, better analysis of consumption patterns, and the speedy identification of leaks.
The water company aims to reduce leakage by 50% by 2050 and improve customers’ water efficiency by reducing PCC by nine percent by 2025.
In Latin America, IoT analyst firm Berg Insight expects installed smart meter units to reach 38.4 million at the end of 2028, up from around 11.7 million units in 2022.
Image credit: iStockphoto/Alexander Shapovalov