Acritical task for a water master in Oberzent,
the third largest city in terms of
area in the German state of Hessen,
is to visit each water reservoir and plant individually
to read the measured values and check
the instruments. That has changed with Oberzent’s
adoption of a new low-power LoRaWAN
network (long range wide area network) for
its water management system. The LoRaWAN
specification is a networking protocol designed
to wirelessly connect battery operated devices
to the internet in regional, national, or global
networks, and targets key Internet of Things
(IoT) requirements such as bi-directional communication,
end-to-end security, mobility, and
localization services.
In addition to the LoRaWAN adoption, parts
of the city’s measuring systems have been modernized
to integrate the individual reservoirs
and plants into a cloud-based monitoring system.
This provides the city’s water masters with
all information they need at any time, whether
they are using a mobile device or at their computer
in the operations center.
Smart technology
boosts efficiency
The reliability of the water supply in each of
the city’s 19 districts has top priority in serving
the city’s 10,248 citizens. The local water
masters maintain a total of seven springs, two
deep wells, and 18 reservoirs. As there are just
four water masters in charge of maintaining the
water network, each has a corresponding high
workload. To ensure the water supply network is
always running smoothly, the water masters had
to deal with obstacles in the Odenwald forest
every day, as they were required to gather and
process information from 19 decentralized water
infrastructure facilities spread out over a territory
of 165 km2. To do this, water masters spent
a large portion of their workday driving around
to the facilities, taking away time that could be
spent on other water management tasks.
The installation of a cloud-based monitoring
system has now made all relevant information
available in centralized form for the water masters.
This makes it possible to visualize data from
60 decentralized sensors across 35 flowmeters,
17 level meters, seven pressure meters, and two
analysis panels for quality monitoring. The lack of
stable cellular service coverage in many areas of
the Odenwald forest made it necessary to set up
wireless data transmission that does not use much
energy. The LoRaWAN technology is ideal for this
application where small amounts of data have to be
transmitted over long distances (up to 15 km/9.3
miles). Additional benefits of LoRaWAN are low
energy consumption, low costs, and secure data
transfer. Even though the LoRa alliance specifies
a uniform standard, LoRaWAN can be used
without a contract with a mobile communications
provider. The local energy utility, Entega, manages
construction and operation of the LoRaWAN
network in Oberzent.
Everything at a glance
The city’s water masters now see all relevant data
points from their water treatment system on a
cloud-based dashboard. The dashboard, developed
by Endress+Hauser using its Netilion IIoT (industrial
Internet of Things) technology, shows the
various networks and can be used by the water
masters on a variety of devices, including smartphones,
tablets, and laptops. This makes it possible
to skip the daily routine visits to the reservoirs
and water treatment stations and perform work
on various terminal devices remotely through the
technology’s web-based service access. This allows
the water masters to use their time much more
effectively. It has also increased the water masters’
ability to react thanks to proactive processing of
problems in the water network.
“Our water masters can now spend more time
on their core tasks and less time making trips out
to plants. This is key because these specialists are
currently in short supply on the job market,” says
Christian Kehrer, mayor of Oberzent.
With the Netilion IIoT ecosystem,
Endress+Hauser offers a variety of solutions for
a smart city. In Oberzent, Netilion provides the
basic data needed for creating and programming
individual dashboards that display the entire process
of water treatment and storage. This is implemented
in the online service Netilion Water Network
Insights, which enables monitoring of water
networks as well as process optimization via actions
such as leak detection or reservoir management.
Endress+Hauser has vast process knowledge
in the water and wastewater industry as well as in
instrumentation. This makes us a strong partner,
whether you need one individual sensor or a fullfledged
cloud application as a complete solution.
Endress+Hauser offers plant operators certified
instrumentation for all processes, combined with
solutions for data transfer as well as data processing
and visualization.
