University campus wide LoRaWAN Wireless energy monitoring

A facilities manager at a university campus in Hong Kong is seeking a fast and cost-effective metering solution to consolidate energy data from dispersed locations across the campus for consumption monitoring, cost allocation, and energy-saving purposes.

Project Scope:

The university campus, located in northern Hong Kong, covers 60 hectares and includes over 30 buildings. The project involves using LoRaWAN meters to monitor the electricity usage of 21 buildings with over 350 monitoring points spread across the campus. Sub-metering needs to support loads of up to 1600A, with metering data transmitted via the LoRaWAN network to cloud storage, and then locally displayed in the Building Management System (BMS) or Energy Management System (EMS). Key considerations for the project are tight deadlines, limited budget, and the dispersed nature of the metering locations. Wireless technology is being considered as a cost-effective solution to reduce implementation time and lower installation costs for these scattered sub-metering locations.

Solution:

LoRaWAN technology offers long-range transmission capabilities and strong penetration, making it suitable for rural or indoor applications. The proposed solution is the PMC-350-C, a three-phase energy meter using LoRaWAN technology for remote wireless communication. The PMC-350-C monitors consumption data and key electrical parameters and automatically pushes this data to the nearest LoRaWAN gateway.

The PMC-350-C is compact and can be easily installed in both new and existing buildings without any additional wiring. By connecting to a dedicated LoRaWAN wireless network (through any 3rd-party LoRaWAN gateway), the meter can wirelessly transmit consumption and real-time data at predefined intervals over distances of up to 5 kilometers to a registered LoRaWAN gateway, where the data is then pushed to a cloud-based LoRaWAN network server for storage and further processing. The client’s application server (e.g., BMS or EMS) can continuously retrieve the metering data from the network server in the cloud.

This architecture eliminates the need for maintaining local servers for data storage, saving on costs and reducing maintenance workload. Energy and real-time information are presented through a fully customizable, user-friendly dashboard, enabling customers to easily and quickly perform data analysis for billing or energy usage monitoring.

This wireless LoRaWAN solution provides an efficient, scalable, and cost-effective approach to meet the university’s energy management needs across its dispersed campus.