Part 2 - Smart Metering in India: Transforming Utilities with IoT

In this second installment of a two-part series, we’ll explore how Sehaj Synergy Technologies Private Limited (SSTPL) and Tata Communications have successfully leveraged LoRaWAN® technology to implement smart metering applications across India. The following use cases highlight the benefits and impact of LoRaWAN, demonstrating its widespread adoption across various market segments, including commercial, enterprise, residential, and community applications.  

Optimizing Water and Energy Management with SSTPL

SSTPL is revolutionizing water management with their advanced LoRaWAN-based smart water metering solutions. Their products enable real-time water consumption data transmission, enhancing operational efficiency and resource management for utilities, municipalities, enterprises, and residential consumers. By leveraging SSTPL's innovative solutions, users can optimize water distribution, reduce waste and improve sustainability while achieving cost savings and better decision-making. 

LoRaWAN technology is transforming the smart water metering sector by optimizing water consumption and improving resource management. Key customers for this technology include utility companies, municipalities, large enterprises, and end consumers. Utility companies use LoRaWAN for real-time data transmission, enabling efficient water distribution. Municipalities use it for urban water management in smart cities, while large businesses track usage to reduce costs and meet compliance. Residential users benefit from real-time feedback to reduce water waste and lower utility costs. 

The core benefits of LoRaWAN-based smart water metering systems include real-time data for better decision-making, cost efficiency, and predictive analytics to optimize water usage. LoRaWAN’s scalability, reliability and low power consumption make it ideal for large-scale deployments in diverse environments, from urban areas to remote locations. It also offers security features to protect sensitive consumption data. 

However, challenges remain in ensuring regulatory compliance and managing infrastructure needs, especially in rural areas. Integration with legacy systems can also be complex, and environmental factors such as harsh weather conditions can affect performance. 

LoRaWAN-based systems offer significant benefits, including high meter reading success rates, improved resource management, reduced operational costs, and lower water theft. The technology also enhances customer engagement, allowing consumers to track usage and encourage conservation. Predictive maintenance capabilities further improve operational efficiency, while the system helps utilities reduce carbon emissions, supporting sustainability goals. 

SSTPL is also transforming the energy sector with its cutting-edge LoRaWAN-based smart energy metering systems. LoRaWAN provides an efficient and scalable solution to optimize energy consumption, reduce waste, and improve energy management. Through near real-time data transmission, SSTPL’s smart energy meters help utility companies, municipalities, large enterprises and consumers make informed decisions about energy usage, contributing to enhanced operational efficiency, cost savings, and sustainability. 

For utility companies, municipalities and enterprises, SSTPL’s smart energy metering solutions offer real-time data transmission for better management of energy distribution and consumption. These systems support predictive analytics, enabling utilities to forecast demand and identify inefficiencies, while reducing operational costs through lower infrastructure requirements. LoRaWAN’s long-range, low-power capabilities make it ideal for both urban and remote areas, ensuring continuous and reliable data flow, even in challenging environments. End consumers benefit as well, with access to detailed insights into their energy consumption, empowering them to reduce waste and lower costs. 

SSTPL’s LoRaWAN-based smart energy meters provide a highly secure, cost-effective and scalable solution for energy management. The technology ensures seamless integration with existing systems and meets industry standards for accuracy and data privacy. By offering features like predictive maintenance, improved billing cycles and support for renewable energy integration, SSTPL’s smart energy metering systems enhance grid stability and optimize energy usage. As a result, customers experience not only financial savings but also greater control over their energy consumption, leading to a more sustainable and efficient energy future. 

IoT-based Smart Electricity Metering with Tata Communications 

In one of India’s largest private townships, the utility provider faced data collection challenges with conventional energy meters. Manual meter reading was hindered by factors such as a high number of inaccessible meters due to locked doors. As a result, a significant portion of billing relied on approximations, leading to increased customer complaints. This, in turn, created additional financial and managerial strain on the business.  

Tata Communications implemented a cost-effective, end-to-end automated meter reading solution using LoRaWAN to resolve customer challenges. A dedicated application was developed to provide the utility provider with remote meter access, real-time consumption monitoring and tamper alerts, enabling timely actions and data-driven decisions. Seamlessly integrated with LoRaWAN, the solution ensures minimal maintenance costs, ultimately enhancing customer ROI. 

This deployment has resulted in a reduction in the operational cost to the utility provider and improving the quality of service to the end user. 

➔100% reduction in door lock cases. 

➔Significant reduction in time spent on customer complaints on inaccurate billing (that consumed 40-50% of manhours). 

➔25% reduction in rectification timelines for energy outages. 

IoT-based Smart Water Metering with Tata Communications 

In India, numerous municipalities and private utilities struggled with the high effort and cost of manual meter data collection. Undetected leaks contributed to rising non-revenue water, while inefficient usage of this vital resource remained a growing concern. The absence of accurate data and analytics forced reliance on estimates for demand planning and budgeting, further complicating operations. These challenges collectively added to their operational, managerial and financial burdens. 

Tata Communications deployed an end-to-end retrofitted automated meter reading solution based on LoRaWAN network technology to address customer issues, offered at a competitive cost and in an easy-to-deploy/scale model. With seamless integration, LoRaWAN has kept maintenance costs at a minimum and has boosted customer ROI. With a vast ecosystem of partners, Tata Communications caters to a wide range of use-cases – residential, commercial and industrial, along with a promise of timely support and issue resolution. Tata Communications’ application enables the utility provider with remote access to meters, real-time view of consumption and alerts in case of any tampering, ultimately empowering them to take timely action and data-driven decisions. 

This deployment has resulted in: 

➔ Optimized operational costs by eliminating manual effort in meter data reading. 

➔ Near real-time monitoring of consumption and accurate billing. 

➔ Enabling a billing and revenue recognition mechanism for an otherwise unmonitored resource. 

➔ Greater vigilance in water consumption and conservation. 

➔ Timely detection of leaks and hence mitigated non-revenue water. 

➔ Enables data-driven decision making for utility with real-time view of demand and consumption trends. 

IoT-based Smart Gas Metering with Tata Communications 

With the adoption of piped natural gas in India, two of the largest city gas distributors (aka CGD) were the early movers to develop and deploy a pipeline natural gas (aka PNG) system. The foray into PNG itself is a rational way to address business challenges related to the onerous supply chain management involved in a liquefied petroleum gas system (aka LPG), alongside the mitigated environmental impact PNG has in comparison to LPG. CGDs faced significant business challenges, including heavy reliance on manual data collection, inaccuracies in recorded data, inaccessible meters, delayed and estimated billing, and difficulty detecting anomalies such as leaks or tampering. These issues ultimately resulted in suboptimal revenue recognition. 

Tata Communications brings extensive experience in deploying pre- and post-paid PNG metering solutions using LoRaWAN, effectively addressing utility concerns. Their solution is cost-effective, easy to deploy and scale and ensures seamless integration, minimizing maintenance costs and enhancing customer ROI. 

Leveraging a vast partner ecosystem, they support diverse use cases while guaranteeing timely support and issue resolution. Their in-house application for post-paid LoRaWAN-based gas metering, deployed at scale, provides utility providers with remote meter access, real-time consumption monitoring and tamper alerts—enabling proactive actions and data-driven decisions. 

This deployment delivers a dual benefit: reducing operational costs for utility providers while enhancing service quality for end users. 

The Impact of IoT Solutions 

The deployment of SSTPL and Tata Communications' smart water and energy management systems has transformed resource tracking and distribution across various sectors. With real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance and remote-control capabilities, organizations have enhanced operational efficiency, reduced waste and advanced their sustainability goals. These use cases showcase the impact of IoT-driven smart metering in revolutionizing resource management in India. 

To learn more about how Semtech smart metering solutions can enhance efficiency and sustainability, visit our website. Click here to read part 1.  

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