The Smart Water Revolution: How LoRaWAN® is Solving Iberia's Water Crisis

A Growing Crisis Demands Smart Solutions 

Spain loses 25% of its water to leaks¹. Portugal loses 33%². Meanwhile, Catalonia's reservoirs have reached historic lows and Portugal's Algarve region has imposed severe restrictions with dams at just 20% capacity. The Iberian Peninsula faces a growing water crisis.  

Spain has emerged as a significant adopter of Advanced Metering Infrastructure with LoRaWAN® as the leading choice of IoT connectivity, with over 647,000 LoRaWAN-enabled water meters already deployed—and the European Union (EU) is backing expansion through its Strategic Projects for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE) funding program. 

EU Investment Accelerates Adoption 

In September 2025, the EU financed a significant project in Terrassa, Spain, deploying 4,500 LoRaWAN water meters through the PERTE program. This initiative, promoted by Spain's Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, could replicate across municipalities nationwide. 

Four Leaders Driving the Revolution: Leading Players in Smart Water Management 

The transformation of Iberia's water management landscape is being driven by four key innovators, each contributing unique strengths to the smart water ecosystem: 

Netmore: Network Infrastructure at Scale 

Netmore has deployed 3,500 LoRaWAN gateways across Portugal in partnership with Vantage Towers and acquired Everynet's Spanish network to expand coverage. Their Metering-as-a-Service (MaaS) model eliminates upfront costs, transforming capital expenditure into operational subscriptions that include meters, connectivity, installation, and maintenance. 

ARSON METERING now part of NETMORE: Proven Performance in Water Management 

Operating from their Leioa, Bizkaia control center, ARSON manages 800,000 meters across Europe, including 300,000 in Spain³. Their integrated approach combines advanced analytics for hydraulic balancing with acoustic sensors for leak detection, achieving: 

• • 100% coverage regardless of municipality characteristics 

• • Immediate 25% reduction in Non-Revenue Water 

• • 1.7 million cubic meters of water saved annually

Global Omnium: Utility-Scale Excellence 

The Cellnex-Global Omnium joint venture “ADESAL” showcases enterprise-scale implementation of a LoRaWAN network to support the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) deployment of smart water meters across 58 municipalities including Valencia city: 

• • Nearly 150,000 LoRaWAN water meters  

• • 116  gateways installed in public buildings and Cellnex sites with outsourced service to Cellnex  

• • 97-98% reading success rates 

• • Valencia's 60,000-meter deployment as flagship project with 44 gateways 

• • Using wM-Bus for fallback meter data collection 

IoTsens: Platform Innovation & Growth 

Based in Castellón de la Plana, IoTsens currently operates 200,000+ smart water meters in Spain with plans to reach 340,000 within two years. Their cloud-based platform achieves 98%+ daily reading success rates while enabling utilities to visualize real-time consumption, configure alerts, and detect leaks through advanced analytics. 

LoRaWAN is IoTsens' main and preferred technology. Their platform demonstrates network reuse capabilities, with the same infrastructure supporting air quality monitoring, smart parking, waste collection optimization, smart irrigation, and tourism intelligence—allowing municipalities to leverage water metering infrastructure for multiple applications. 

Innovative Business Models: Breaking Down Financial Barriers 

Beyond technological innovation, these industry leaders are also pioneering new financial models that make smart water infrastructure more accessible. Netmore's most innovative offering is its Metering-as-a-Service (MaaS) solution, which directly addresses one of the most significant barriers to smart water infrastructure adoption: the high initial investment costs that many utilities struggle to justify. 

MaaS transforms the traditional capital expenditure model into an operational expense-oriented approach. Instead of requiring substantial upfront investment in hardware, installation, and network deployment, utilities can access a comprehensive subscription-based service that includes smart water meters, LoRaWAN connectivity, installation and ongoing maintenance. 

This financial model is particularly rare in Europe, though it has seen some adoption in the United States. By bringing this approach to Iberian utilities, these companies are democratizing access to advanced water management technology at a time when it's most needed.  

Why LoRaWAN for Water Metering 

The LoRa® technology used in LoRaWAN network for AMI offers several advantages for the use case of smart water meters: 

• Very low power enables 15-year battery life of meters 

• High sensitivity of the LoRa radio allows up to 15 km range in rural areas and superior penetration through deep indoor installations and physical barriers 

• Proven performances in Spain from IoTsens, Global Omnium and Arson Metering showing over 98% reading rates achieved across multiple large-scale deployments 

• Open and interoperable ecosystem with several LoRaWAN certified smart water meters from leading meter manufacturers  

• Demonstrated impact of immediate non-revenue water (NRW) reduction millions of cubic meters saved annually in real deployments 

• Multi-IoT application capability enabling share of LoRaWAN network for other utility or smart city services 

Looking Forward: The Future of Smart Water Management  

With EU backing through PERTE, Spain's LoRaWAN water infrastructure continues to expand. The Terrassa model—combining government funding, proven technology and rapid deployment timelines—provides a template that could be adopted by other municipalities. 

For utilities facing 25-33% water loss, the value proposition includes proven technology, flexible financing models, demonstrated NRW reductions, and the ability to leverage the same network for broader municipal applications. 

Spain has already 650,000 LoRaWAN water meters deployed and is aiming to double this volume within the next two years. These new deployments will continue to provide greater results in solving the water crisis and helping water conservation across the Iberian region.  

To learn more about Semtech’s technology solutions for smart water metering, visit our website.  

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