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Home | LoRa based remote reading of water meters at KERING head office

LoRa based remote reading of water meters at KERING head office

With Esmé Solutions and Enless Wireless

In 2022, the global luxury brand group KERING, in association with its operator, VINCI, initiated a project to equip its head office to enable an assessment of the environmental impacts of the various buildings on the site, in application of the BREEAM certification standard. The requirements of this certification include, among others, energy management, measurements of pollution created by the buildings, waste management and water use management. In processing this last requirement, the teams from ESME SOLUTIONS created an automated remote cold water metering solution which used a number of ENLESS WIRELESS Pulse LoRa remote meter reading sensors.

Context for recording the water consumption data:

The site covered by the project is the head office of KERING, a global luxury brand group of emblematic fashion houses, leather goods and jewellery names, including Gucci, Saint-Laurent, and Balenciaga. The site is also a protected historic site, involving complex architecture. The walls of the buildings are very thick, presenting serious issues in terms of wiring.

Previously, the water meters were manually read monthly, which required intervention by technical staff. VINCI, the company operating the site, together with teams from KERING, wanted to automate these readings.

 

The objectives:

There were three objectives for the system:

  • To detect leaks from the water mains
  • To enable a detailed analysis of water consumption
  • To obtain the BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) certification, the acknowledged international standard for the assessment of buildings.

 

The deployment:

The Enless Wireless LoRa remote reading sensors were fitted to the 13 water meters on the site, and parameterized with a data transmission interval of 15 minutes.

Position of water meters

The connection of the Enless Pulse LoRa transmitter to the meters was wired.

In addition to the 13 Enless Pulse LoRa sensors, an Enless LoRa receiver and five Enless LoRa repeaters were also fitted at strategic locations around the site to enable reception of the data from the Pulse sensors at all points around the buildings.

N.B.: An Enless LoRa receiver can receive data from up to 40 Enless Wireless sensors.

 

Setting the parameters for the Enless receiver is quick and easy, thanks to the server embedded in the receiver.

The additional repeaters did not require any installation work and were networked with each other.

The Enless Wireless remote reading sensors transmit the pulse data to the Enless LoRa receiver every 15 minutes, thus making it possible to calculate by deduction the water consumption through the meters.

 

 

The technical team in charge of implementation for Esmé Solutions, Eiffage Energie Système, testifies:

« Thanks to the Enless LoRa receivers used in a private network with signal repeaters, the deployment work was greatly facilitated especially in areas difficult to access ».

 

Local Edge computing processing of the data then provides the data for the Building Management System – BMS – (Energy Box UC-4 controller).

Energy Box UC-4 controller

The EB can process the data to provide, at any moment and depending on the requirements, water consumption histograms and tables.

A further visualisation, analytic and operational level for the collected data is then available using the IoT Energy Management Powerbat platform.

The results?

With the launch of the system, any incidents can be identified in real time thanks to the automated reading and transmission of the water use data. Any abnormal consumption can be detected in quantities of just a few m3. The operator, quickly alerted in just minutes, can then take immediate action, pinpoint the leak and make repairs.

 

And the future?

 

The Kering representative, alongside with the Esmé Solutions teams, is now considering extending the system to other uses in an effort to continuously improve comfort and control of consumption.

« We have excellent discussions with the Enless team, including their support team and their sales team. Our PLC now natively integrates their LoRa sensor range of devices. »

Esmé Solutions team in charge of the project

About Esmé Solutions

Esmé Solutions is a long-term player in the smart building solutions market, and is a subsidiary of the Eren Group, a market leader in the production of renewable energy and an innovator in the decarbonisation of buildings. For service sector and industrial sector buildings, Esmé Solutions delivers uncomplicated solutions enabling managers to effectively manage their estates, control energy costs, optimise the operational elements and deliver high quality services for the buildings’ users. Esmé Solutions is a French company that offers much more than just a Building Automation System: as a committed and trusted partner the company delivers its services throughout the life-cycle of the building to guarantee the highest level of efficiency and performance.

https://esme-solutions.com/

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