Indian smart water meter developer WEGoT and French IoT solution provider Kerlink are partnering to deliver a LoRaWAN-based solution in India.
The two companies will combine the Indian startup’s ultrasonic water meters and cloud application in LoRaWAN networks with Kerlink’s outdoor Wirnet iStations and Wirnet iFemtocell indoor gateways, which receive sensor-generated data and transfer it to building and facility managers.
It also gives businesses, such as water delivery companies and water and sewage-treatment plants, a real-time picture of operations, and informs preventative-maintenance decisions.
WEGoT and Kerlink plan to deploy the system in a million homes and more than 5,000 commercial and industrial facilities by 2024, with the potential to save 10 billion-plus litres of water within that period.
WEGoT, which was launched in 2015, calculates that its systems in more than 30,000 homes and 40 million square feet of commercial space have saved more than 3 billion litres of water to date.
“Kerlink is a strong and responsive partner in our plan to expand and accelerate deployments of WEGoT’s Aqua solution, because their equipment is being used in diverse Indian LoRaWAN networks and has proven to be robust and reliable under any conditions,” said Vijay Krishna, WEGoT’s vice president, Networks.
“Because of that experience, the company understands how to do business in India, which helps make our system rollouts for customers simple and quick.”
With a population of more than 1.3 billion, India faces ongoing challenges providing adequate water for residential and industrial consumption. NITI Aayog, an Indian government public-policy think tank, forecasts the country’s water supply will meet only half of demand by 2030.
WEGoT’s Aqua IoT-based solution is designed for facilities ranging from hotels, hospitals and factories to high-rise residential buildings. It monitors water supply systems by tracking detailed consumption data via its ultrasonic sensors that measure water flow, pressure and quality and transmits the data to property managers’ dashboards and smartphones in real time.
The company claims the system has consistently enabled users, such as large residential communities, to reduce their water consumption by up to 50% with a concomitant reduction in water-related costs.
The solution also sends water leak alerts to users’ mobile apps so that these can attended to as soon as possible.