Kerlink Demos How LoRaWAN Can Lower Energy Use for Cities

Kerlink, a specialist in solutions dedicated to the Internet of Things (IoT), is demonstrating that smart city networks can deliver the same benefits for small towns that they do for metropolitan areas using LoRaWAN wireless technology.

Saint-Grégoire, France, a city of 9,700 residents and a 17km²-area, has installed a customized IoT network aimed at reducing building energy consumption by 20 percent, cutting CO2 emissions and making use of city services more convenient.

Deployed with Kerlink’s integrator partner, Sensing Vision, the network combines LoRaWAN IoT connectivity with Kerlink’s indoor and outdoor Wirnet™ LoRaWAN gateways, and its Wanesy Management Center, Wi-Fi hotspots and Saint-Grégoire’s existing optical fiber network.

Industrial-grade Wirnet LoRaWAN gateways, including Wirnet iStation outdoor gateways and a Wirnet iFemtoCell indoor gateway, receive and route data from 68 energy-use sensors, 150 parking-spot sensors and two COVID-19 refrigerator-sensor sites across the city through the Wanesy Management Center to Sensing Vision”s ENERGY SUITE solution. City staff continuously monitors the data with Sensing Vision’s dashboard and gets notified by email / sms for critical alerts.

Between October 2020 and January 2021, the city of Saint-Grégoire achieved a 43 percent reduction in electricity consumption, saving €12,000.

This reduction was achieved by transforming real-time data into valuable information, and guiding city staff to adjust systems to match the requested service level, associated with the real occupancy of public buildings. Real-time alerts by email / sms allow the city staff to react without delay to leakages, wrong parameters and system dysfunctions.

“Studies report that public buildings waste a lot of electricity use without systems that monitor and manage room usage, lighting and temperature,” said Benjamin Maury, smart city & smart building director at Kerlink. “Kerlink’s LoRaWAN solutions can be configured to meet the precise building-efficiency goals of public officials in any size of municipality, including simple management of network options. Add to that the efficient use of parking spaces and monitoring of refuse collection, and you have a flexible solution that reduces costs, saves energy and improves quality of life for city residents.”

“As an integrator of communication networks that include equipment and software from a variety of vendors, Sensing Vision confidently recommends and works with Kerlink’s technology,” said Benoit Vagneur, president of Sensing Vision. “Our collaborations in smart-city projects have helped municipal officials meet their goals for energy conservation and lower emissions, as well as for making essential services more efficient.”